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Two cases of a mutant coronavirus, linked to South Africa, have been found in the UK, leading to travel restrictions on the country.
More than 40% of England’s population will be locked up since St. Stephen’s Day after another six million people were placed under Level 4 restrictions.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said that cases of another new mutant coronavirus linked to South Africa have been found in the UK and travel restrictions have been imposed on the country.
The changes came as government figures showed that another 744 people were reported to have died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19, the highest number since April 29 during the virus’s first peak.
There were another 39,237 laboratory-confirmed coronavirus cases as of 9 a.m. Wednesday, the highest number reported in a single day during the entire pandemic, though this is partly due to much more extensive testing.
The areas that will move to Level 4 from December 26 are: Sussex, Oxfordshire, Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire, those parts of Essex that are not yet at Level 4, Waverley in Surrey and Hampshire, including Portsmouth and Southampton, but with the exception of the New Forest.
Level 4 restrictions include a stay-at-home warning, a limit on domestic mixing for two people outdoors, and forcing many stores, barber shops and gyms to close.
The measures are in addition to Level 3 restrictions, such as pub and restaurant closures, except for takeout and deliveries.
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.
Hancock told a Downing Street news conference: “Just as we had a tiered system that could control this virus, we have discovered a new and more contagious virus, a variant that is spreading at a dangerous rate.”
The changes mean that a total of 24 million people will now be at Level 4, or 43% of England’s population.
Hancock warned: “This Christmas and the beginning of 2021 is going to be tough. The new variant makes everything much more difficult because it spreads much faster.
“But we must not give up now, we know we can control this virus, we know we can overcome this together, we will overcome it by suppressing the virus until a vaccine can make us safe.”
The Health Secretary also gave details on the discovery of the “highly worrisome” and “even more transmissible” South African variant in the UK.
He said the two cases were contacts of people who traveled from South Africa in recent weeks.
The health secretary said the cases and their close contacts have been quarantined.
He announced immediate restrictions on travel from South Africa and the government is telling those who have been to the country in the last fortnight and their close contacts to self-quarantine immediately.
The law will be modified to cover the new restrictions, he added.
The challenge facing the government was underlined by official estimates showing that the R-value, the average number of people infected by the coronavirus, has risen from 1.1 to 1.3, from 1.1 to 1.2 a week ago. .
The number of new infections is growing between 1 and 6 percent each day, from 1 to 4 percent last week.
PA media
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