Covid 19 coronavirus: Boris Johnson announces a new national lockdown

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a new one-month lockdown for England after being warned that a resurgent coronavirus outbreak will overwhelm hospitals in weeks without tough action.

Johnson told a televised news conference Saturday that the new measures will begin Thursday and last until Dec. 2. He said that without them, “we could see deaths in this country in the thousands a day.”

Bars and restaurants can only offer takeout, nonessential stores must close, and people will only be able to leave the house for a short list of reasons, including exercise.

Unlike the first UK shutdown earlier this year, schools, universities, construction sites and manufacturing companies will remain open.

Johnson had hoped that a set of regional restrictions would be enough to contain the virus, but government scientific advisers predict that in the current trajectory of the outbreak, demand for hospital beds will soon exceed capacity.

Johnson came under increasing pressure to act as scientists warned that hospitalizations and deaths from Covid-19 in the UK could soon exceed the levels seen at the outbreak’s spring peak, when daily deaths surpassed those. 1,000. As European countries like France, Germany and Belgium imposed a second lockdown amid a surge in cases, it seemed inevitable that Johnson would have to continue.

London School of Hygiene epidemiologist John Edmunds, a member of the government’s scientific advisory group, said on Saturday that the cases were “significantly above” the reasonable worst-case scenario produced by the modelers.

“It’s really unthinkable right now, unfortunately, that we don’t count our deaths in the tens of thousands from this wave,” Edmunds told the BBC. “The question is, will it be tens of thousands if we take radical action now or will it be tens of thousands if we don’t?”

Official figures released on Saturday recorded 21,915 new confirmed cases in the past 24 hours, bringing Britain’s total since the start of the pandemic to 1,011,660. Britain’s death toll from the coronavirus stands at 46,555, the highest in Europe, with 326 new deaths announced on Saturday.

The United States, India, Brazil, Russia, France, Spain, Argentina and Colombia have also recorded more than 1 million cases, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. Scientists say the actual number of cases is much higher because not everyone with the virus is tested.

The new measures apply to England. Other parts of the UK established their own public health measures, with Wales and Northern Ireland already effectively locked up and Scotland under a series of strict regional restrictions.

Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon said on Saturday that for now people in Scotland should not travel to or from England “except for essential purposes.”

Lucy Powell, a business spokeswoman for the opposition Labor Party, accused the government of “wavering” and said the country now faces a longer lockdown than if Johnson had acted earlier.

But Johnson is also under pressure from some members of his Conservative Party, who oppose stricter restrictions because of the economic damage they cause. Any new blockade will need the approval of Parliament in a vote scheduled for Wednesday.

Business owners who have struggled to recover since the first shutdown was eased said the impact of the new closures would be devastating.

“People have borrowed to the hilt and spent money to get COVID safety,” said Kate Nicholls of the bar and restaurant industry group Hospitality UK “There is no available capacity in the tank to be able to fund a shutdown, even for three to four weeks. “

A government program that paid the wages of millions of employees without permission during the pandemic was due to end on Saturday, but will be extended during the new shutdown.

Johnson had planned to announce the shutdown in Parliament on Monday, but was forced to act early after the Times of London reported the news. The government said there would be an investigation into the leak.

The UK is recording more than 20,000 new coronavirus infections a day, and government statistics say the true figure is much higher. The Office for National Statistics estimated on Friday that 1 in 100 people in England, more than half a million, had the virus in the week ending October 23.

Jeremy Farrar, director of the medical research charity Wellcome Trust and a government advisor, said swift action would prevent many more deaths.

“The best time to act was a month ago, but these are very difficult decisions that we would all like to avoid,” he tweeted. “The second best moment is now”.