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According to Health Secretary Matt Hancock, COVID-19 will henceforth include not just London and the south-east, but also many areas of central, north, and south-west England.
Residents of higher risk areas are advised to stay at home, they are not allowed to meet with different households, unnecessary shops are closed, and restaurants and bars can only order takeout.
Hancock welcomed the news that a second coronavirus vaccine had been approved for distribution in the UK early Wednesday. Still, “the rapidly growing number of cases and additional hospitalizations point to the need to act where the virus is spreading,” the secretary added.
“The day is coming when we can lift the restrictions,” he told lawmakers in the House of Commons. “But … we must take steps to control the virus now, especially since the new strain is making this period even more difficult.”
Hospitals in the hardest hit areas of London and the south of England are becoming increasingly congested, and ambulances are unable to take patients to some treatment facilities where all beds are taken. Currently, more COVID-19 patients are being treated in hospitals than during the peak of the first wave of the epidemic in the spring.
More than 71,000 have been confirmed in Britain. deaths from coronavirus, the second highest number of victims in Europe after Italy. A record number of new infections were detected in the UK on Tuesday, 53,135.
The total number of reported cases in the country exceeds 2.44 million.
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