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England has been warned of a New Years lockdown after the government’s top scientific adviser demanded a massive extension of Level 4 restrictions.
With the new variant now emerging across the UK, an announcement is expected that large areas of England will join London and parts of south east England at Level 4 on Wednesday 30 December, when the next system overhaul is expected. of levels.
The crackdown is expected to take effect in the New Year.
The rapid spread of the virus means that COVID-19 The crisis facing Boris Johnson is increasing dramatically, with chaos in the Channel ports caused by the french travel ban It is expected to last at least until Christmas Eve.
And in another blow to the traveling public, the Stormont executive in Belfast advises against non-essential travel between Northern Ireland and Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Republic.
The executive also urges anyone arriving in Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK to isolate themselves for 10 days.
The imminent Level 4 extension in England follows Warning from England’s Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance on Monday during a press conference in Downing Street together with the prime minister.
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Patrick Vallance warns of further restrictions
Although he said a decision on Level 4 areas was for politicians, Sir Patrick said the cases had spread “all over the place” and warned the country to prepare for further restrictions.
“The evidence for this virus is that it spreads easily,” he said. “It is more transmissible, it is absolutely necessary to make sure we have the right level of restrictions.
“I think the number of the variant is likely to increase across the country and I think therefore the measures are likely to have to be increased in some places, in time, not reduced.”
And on Level 4 measures, he urged the public to take the new variant of COVID “incredibly seriously” and said it required “more action to keep it low and that is why Level 4 is important.”
In another highly significant development at the Downing Street press conference, Johnson noted that another government U-turn could be on the way for schools to reopen in January.
After repeatedly saying during the pandemic that keeping schools open was a “national priority,” the prime minister said that the return of students to classrooms in the New Year would be kept under review.
“The most useful thing I can tell you at this stage is that obviously we want, if possible, for schools to be staggered again at the beginning of January in the way that we have set out,” he said.
“But obviously … what makes common sense is to follow the path of the epidemic and, as we showed last Saturday, to keep things under constant review.”
“But it is very, very important to have children and keep them in education if possible.”
Earlier, government scientific advisers claimed that unless the government imposed another national blockade within days, thousands of lives could be lost in a “human disaster.”
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Robert West, a member of the government’s SAGE advisory committee, said during a briefing by leading scientists that the current tier system is unlikely to contain the spread of the virus.
“We need to readjust our strategy and move rapidly towards a zero COVID strategy of the kind that many have been proposing,” he said.
“This will involve stricter but more rational social distancing rules across the country and we will finally be doing what we should have done from the beginning: building the kind of testing, travel, isolation and support programs that they have in the Far Eastern countries. .
“It sounds expensive, but the alternative could well be a catastrophic collapse in confidence in the country’s ability to control the virus and the economic, human and social disaster that would follow.”
