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Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced in a television speech that the crown’s pandemic measures will be tightened. They must remain in effect until mid-February.
“We have to control the new variant”: Boris Johnson in his television speech on the British people. (Video: UK Pool)
Due to the significantly increasing number of corona infections, the British government has again tightened measures. “We have to impose a blockade on England to get the new Corona variant under control,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a televised speech Monday night. “That means you have to stay home.” The house can only be left for necessary activities like visiting the doctor or working. Schools have to close. Johnson said the measures would likely remain in effect until mid-February. They apply from midnight.
Parliament will debate the closure on Wednesday and broad bipartisan approval is expected. The rest of the country has implemented similar strict measures.
More recently, Britain had always announced new records for new infections, on Monday they were almost 59,000. The number of deaths has increased by 20 percent, that of Covid patients in clinics is 40 percent higher compared to the peak in the spring, Johnson said. The corona variant discovered in the UK, which is possibly up to 70 percent more contagious than previously known, is spreading in “frustrating and alarming ways,” Johnson said. “Stay home, protect the NHS (health service), save lives.”
Johnson emphasized that he understood the frustration of the population and called for a final joint effort. “The weeks ahead will be the most difficult,” said the prime minister. “But I am convinced that we are entering the final phase of the fight because with each vaccine that is injected into our arms, we change course, against Covid and in favor of the British people.”
Two vaccinations on the island.
Britain is now using two coronavirus vaccines. On Monday, 82-year-old dialysis patient Brian Pinker from Oxford was the first to be vaccinated at the local university clinic with the home-grown vaccine from the University of Oxford and the pharmaceutical company Astrazeneca, as announced by the British health service NHS. The vaccine from the German company Biontech and the American company Pfizer has been used for four weeks.
Johnson saw nurse Susan Cole being vaccinated in London. “He asked me how I was feeling,” said the 60-year-old from the PA news agency. “We talked a bit about how important vaccination is not only for humans, but also to protect others.”
At Oxford, the patient Pinker said he was happy to have received the dose. “I am very happy to receive the Covid-19 vaccine today and I am very proud that it was invented in Oxford,” he said, according to the NHS announcement. British Health Minister Matt Hancock described the initiation of vaccination with the agent as an “indispensable step” in the fight against the pandemic.
Storage advantages
The second corona vaccine used in the country has a great advantage: the Oxford agent can be stored at refrigerator temperatures, which significantly simplifies logistics. At first, the country will have half a million doses available, which will be injected in hundreds of hospitals and doctors’ offices starting this week. The vaccine is not yet approved in the EU.
Scotland’s Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon had already gone ahead with the closure of her part of the country on Monday afternoon. There, stricter measures should be applied from Tuesday. Schools there, for example, should remain closed until February.
