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Prime Minister Boris Johnson has suggested that the recent surge in coronavirus cases in the UK is the result of a “wear and tear on people’s discipline” over the summer.
He said compliance with virus restrictions had been “high at first”, but then “everyone got a little bit, a little complacent and carefree.”
Cases have risen sharply in the UK since the end of August.
After starting to relax restrictions before the summer, the government has had to tighten its measures.
It comes as the latest figures from the UK show there have been another 6,968 cases and another 66 deaths.
The R number, a measure of how many other people each person is infecting with the virus, has risen to between 1.3 and 1.6.
However, there is more evidence that new coronavirus infections may be increasing more slowly than in previous weeks.
In total, at least 16.8 million people in the UK – roughly one in four people – face additional measures against the coronavirus in addition to national rules, including two-thirds of people in the north of England.
The prime minister, who has been speaking to BBC journalists across the country, denied that a lack of testing in northeast England has caused the virus to spiral out of control in the region.
“That is not the reality … the nation came together in March and April, what happened over the summer was a kind of erosion of people’s discipline and attention to those rules,” he said.
The government has faced strong criticism for its mixed messages since it began easing the national blockade in late spring.
After a steady decline in confirmed cases since the first peak in April, cases began to rise again in July, with the growth rate increasing sharply since the end of August.
In a separate interview with Scotland’s BBC, Johnson said: “They saw what happened in March and April in Scotland, across the country, we got together and we got the virus down.
“Unfortunately, what has happened since then is that everyone became a little, you know, complacent and a little indifferent about the broadcast.
“The rules on social distancing may not have been enforced the way they could have been, or they were not enforced the way they could have been, and that is why we have had to take action both in Scotland and elsewhere. to reduce it again. “
New rules, such as restricting meetings to a maximum of six people and limiting the opening hours of hospitality venues, are among the national measures that have been introduced across the UK.
“I’m afraid some of the muscle memory has faded and people are not following the lead in the way they should,” Johnson added.
When asked about comments from the Mayor of Middlesbrough, who said there had been a “terrifying lack of communication with the local government” about the local closures, Johnson disagreed, adding: “We work very closely with the local government. in all the country”.
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Boris Johnson hired a personal trainer after ending up in hospital with coronavirus
The prime minister also described concerns that he hasn’t been “old Boris” since contracting the coronavirus in March as “sinister misinformation.”
He said he was feeling “considerably better” and, thanks to “recent efforts,” he weighed two stones less than a year ago.
Johnson has previously revealed that he hired a personal trainer to lose weight after acknowledging that he was “too fat” when he contracted Covid-19.
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