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London appears to be added to the national coronavirus watch list, while Leeds, Cardiff and Swansea face new restrictions, it has been announced.
Leeds It is likely to face new restrictions starting at midnight tonight, including a ban on homes mixing, the city council leader said.
Cardiff and Swansea areas will go into local lockdown starting at 6pm Sunday, the Welsh government announced.
The Leeds developments and Welsh came shortly after London The city councils, representing the 32 boroughs of the capital and the City of London, revealed that the city was becoming an “area of concern”.
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Leeds is expected to be named “area of intervention”
While no further action is being taken in London at this time, testing capacity is being pushed to closely monitor the spread of the coronavirus.
London Councils said: “It is a stark reminder that now is the time for all Londoners to come together and take action to keep themselves, their families and communities safe, and to ensure that London’s economy is protected.”
The Mayor of London, Sadiq khanHe said: “London is at a very worrying tipping point right now.”
Warned that any delay in increasing testing will cost lives, the Labor politician added: “It is vital that testing capacity is immediately increased in London and focused on the areas that are most needed.
“Any delay will mean defrauding the city and will cost lives.”
London Councils added: “It is welcome that the city’s testing capacity is increased so that Londoners have timely access to COVID-19 evidence and the government must ensure that this is maintained from now on. “
The London Councils and Khan’s remarks come less than a week after modeling suggested the capital was only two to three days late. virus hot spots in the northwest and northeast.
Londoners have been urged to respect the new restrictions set by Boris johnson at the beginning of the week, including working from home whenever possible and following the rule of six.
Before the prime minister’s announcement, there was an ongoing debate about whether additional measures should be introduced to address the rising rates of COVID-19 in the city.
A spokesman for Khan said the situation was “clearly getting worse” and stricter restrictions were needed to “prevent the coronavirus from spiraling out of control again.”
He met with London Councils before asking Johnson to introduce restrictions to reduce the spread earlier this week.
Speaking on Friday, the mayor pointed to the lack of testing capacity in the capital as the reason it had become an area of concern.
Khan said: “The near collapse of the test and trace and the resurgence of the virus means that further measures are absolutely necessary to curb its spread.
“Testing capacity has been diverted from London in the last two weeks to other national hot spots and weekly test numbers are now down 43% in the capital since mid-August.
“The lack of testing capacity is totally unacceptable and that is why London has been added to the government’s coronavirus watch list as an area of concern.”
Cardiff faces a local lockdown
In Leeds, city council leader Judith Blake said she hoped the city would soon become an “intervention area” – that is, “more domestic restrictions similar to those already in place in three of West Yorkshire’s districts in Bradford, Kirkless and Calderdale “.
He told reporters: “We expect you to arrive after midnight.”
Adding Leeds’ population of 793,000 would bring the number of people living under local restrictions to more than 16.2 million across the UK.
Tom Riordan, executive director of Leeds City Council, said: “What we are trying to do is give a simple message: it should not be mixed with other homes.”
In Cardiff and Swansea, people will not be able to enter or leave the areas without a reasonable excuse. They won’t be able to meet inside with anyone they don’t live with, with the extended homes suspended.
People should work from home when possible, Health Minister Vaughan Gething said at a news conference in Cardiff.
He also urged people not to have a ‘big stir’ over the weekend before the restrictions go into effect, saying: ‘Introducing restrictions anywhere in Wales is always an incredibly difficult decision for us to make.
“Having to introduce these restrictions in our largest cities, including our capital, is another dismal milestone in a difficult year.”
The town of Llanelli will also go into local lockdown on Saturday at 6pm, and virus transmission is said to have been “concentrated” there.
On Thursday, there were 25 new cases in Carmarthenshire, 39 in Cardiff and 41 in Swansea.
the latest weekly data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) It estimates that infections in Wales overall have increased sevenfold, from 1,500 to 10,800, which is equivalent to one in 300 people.
More than 103,000 people in England are estimated to have had coronavirus in the week ending Sept. 19, according to the data.
the transmission rate across the UK it is now believed to be between 1.2 and 1.5, another increase from last week.
