Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday ordered a new nationwide blockade for England in an effort to contain a new version of coronavirus. In a televised address, Johnson called the following weeks a “critical moment” in the country’s fight against COVID-19. The Scottish leader said similar measures the day before.
The new measure forces the closure of all schools, the shutters of personal care services, such as hairdressers and hairdressers, and prohibits meals in person at restaurants. While fines apply to those who leave their homes without valid excuses, there are exemptions that allow people to go out for food or medical supplies, to reach and from childcare or in real emergencies.
Residents are asked to limit outdoor exercise to once a day. Residents in England can only meet another person from a different household for outdoor exercises, and the social distance must be maintained.
Johnson said he understood the “inconvenience and suffering” that the rapid closure of schools would have on families, many of whom sent elementary school children to school earlier Monday, in what turned out to be a school week. one day, and for educators.
“We’ve done everything we can to keep schools open because we know how important children’s life chances are in education every day,” Johnson said. “The problem is not that schools are unsafe for children – children are still very unlikely to be severely affected by the new version of COVID – the problem is that schools can still act as vectors of transmission, causing the virus to spread among households.”
The new variant of COVID-19 was first detected at the end of last year in the south-east of England and fueled a dramatic increase in cases. More than 50,000 new cases of coronavirus are reported daily, and hospitals in some regions are already overwhelmed by an influx of patients. Johnson said the new version is 50-70% more transmissible, making it much easier to catch and pass it on to others.
PAUL ELLIS / AFP through Getty
Prior to the announcement, more than two-thirds of the UK was already under the strictest “Tier 4” restrictions. “Critically, if everyone plays their part by following the rules, then I hope we can constantly get out of the deadlock,” Johnson said.
The fast-growing variant of COVID-19 has already appeared elsewhere in the world. Most recently, it was detected in new York, California and Colorado, in patients without a recent travel history. According to the main infectious disease expert in the USA, Dr. Anthony Fauci, there are “probably more cases” of the new strain not yet detected in the USA
More than 2.7 million people contracted COVID-19 in the UK, with more than 75,000 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Tucker Reals and Charlie D’Agata contributed to this report.