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Millions more people in England will face escalating Covid-19 lockdown measures since St. Stephen’s Day, as ministers acknowledged growing concern over the spread of the coronavirus.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the coronavirus variant was spreading at a “dangerous rate” when he announced the new Level 4 restrictions.
He also said that cases of another new mutant coronavirus linked to South Africa had been found in Britain and imposed new travel restrictions on the country.
Areas that move to the stricter Level 4 measures, where there is a stay-at-home order, from Midsummer’s Day include Sussex, Oxfordshire, Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire.
Other areas include parts of Essex not yet on Level 4, Waverley in Surrey and Hampshire, including Portsmouth and Southampton.
Bristol, Gloucestershire, Somerset, including the council area of North Somerset, Swindon, the Isle of Wight, New Forest and Northamptonshire, as well as Cheshire and Warrington, will be scaled to Level 3.
Cornwall and Herefordshire go from Level 1 to Level 2.
Mr. Hancock told a news conference in Downing Street: “Just as we had a tiered system that could control this virus, we have discovered a new, more contagious virus, a variant that is spreading at a dangerous rate.”
He said both are case contacts who have traveled from South Africa in recent weeks.
“This new variant is of great concern because it is even more transmissible and appears to have mutated more than the (first) new variant that has been discovered in the UK,” Hancock said.
He added: “In this context of increasing infections, increasing hospitalizations and increasing numbers of people dying from coronavirus, it is absolutely vital that we act.
“We just can’t have the kind of Christmas we all crave.”
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