BORIS Johnson has tonight ordered everyone in England to stay at home until mid-February as he launched an emergency shutdown to try and save Britain’s NHS.
In a dramatic escalation in the fight against Covid, the PM ordered the closure of all schools and non-essential shops for at least the next six weeks.
The PM announced the third nationwide lockdown came into effect immediately, and once again put Brits under effective house arrest – resurrecting the ‘Stay Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives slogan’.
And it was the new variant – which is between 50 and 70 per cent more transmissible – which has forced him to act tonight.
Mr Johnson said people will only be allowed out of their homes to buy essential food and medicine supplies, attend medical appointments, exercise, work if it is critical and cannot be done from home and to provide care for a vulnerable person.
He also told the nation:
Police will have legal powers to enforce the rules but fines will not be increased despite a drop in compliance.
Free school meals will continue to receive them as schools stay shut, and more laptops will be dished out to kids across the nation who need them.
And holidays will effectively be cancelled as people have to legally remain at home.
The PM said he was left with no option but to impose the fresh curbs after being confronted with terrifying new data on how the new strain of Covid is rampaging through the country.
Chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty told him the mutant virus is now in every part of the UK.
Tonightthe Covid-19 alert level was raised to five – the first time it has hit the highest rating.
It means that without immediate action there is a “material risk” of healthcare services being overwhelmed within three weeks.
The number of patients in hospital has risen by a third in the last week alone – to more than 27,000.
It is far outstripping the peak of hospitalisations during the first wave, which hit 18,973 cases on April 12.
England’s hospitals are now a massive 40 per cent above that figure, with the usual winter strain on the NHS helping to fill up wards.
Another startling statistic that triggered the Government to act was the UK recording more than 80,000 positive cases in a single day last week – on December 29.
Average case rates in England are now at 518 per 100,000 – three times the level at the start of December and cases as well as hospital admissions are surging in all regions of the country.
The PM said in a telly address tonight: “It’s clear we need to do more, together, to bring this new variant under control.
“We must go into a new national lockdown which is tough enough to contain the virus.
“The Government is once again instructing you to stay at home.”
And he said that while the next couple of months will be the toughest yet, we are closer to finding a way out of the crisis than at any point in the pandemic so far due to the roll-out of the vaccine.
The new rules will come into law from tomorrow, but businesses are being told to shut from tonight.
The Government will once again ask around two million clinically vulnerable people to shield and stay at home even if it means they cannot work.
They have been told to stay at home as much as possible and only leave for exercise or health appointments and avoid busy places such as shops and pharmacies.
Ministers were tonight considering introducing a ban on international travel but people were told to only take essential journeys.
Rules on weddings and funerals will remain the same as in Tier 4 areas – only allowing 15 guests for weddings and 30 mourners at funerals.
The PM set an ambitious new target to vaccinate the most vulnerable 15 million people by February 15, which government medical advisers have said will stop 99 per cent of hospitalisations.
By the middle of February, he said the nation was expected to have been offered to everyone in the top four priority groups – all people in care homes and carers, everyone over the age of 70, all frontline health and social care workers, and everyone who is clinically extremely vulnerable.
If the target is met then the aim is to significantly lift restrictions by the beginning of March.
The nationwide lockdown will last until at least February 15.
No10 said the lockdown will be replaced by the regional tier system of restrictions after that.
Sage member and top epidemiologist Professor John Edmunds said they a UK death toll of more than 100,000 is now “baked in”. In a grim forecast, he told the BBC last night: “I think total numbers of deaths will be unfortunately measured now in those sorts of numbers, 100,000 or more.”
He said “really major additional measures” are needed immediately to control the spread of the virus, with school closures being the “biggest lever” available to the Government.
Nicola Sturgeon this afternoon announced similar measures in Scotland.
Under the new rules, which come into force at midnight, Scots will be ordered to stay at home and schools will remain closed to pupils until February.
Northern Ireland is midway through a six-week shutdown.
Wales has effectively been in a nationwide lockdown since December 20, with Tier 4 restrictions in place.
Schools in Wales will remain closed until January 18 at least.
Last night senior Tories urged the PM to go even further than the first lockdown by shutting the border to international travel.
Former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who now chairs the Commons Health select committee, told Times Radio: “I would like to see tougher border controls.
“At the moment when you come from a country like South Africa where they’ve got a very deadly new strain, you are asked to quarantine yourself for two weeks, but there’s no one to actually check that you do that.
“And if you flew to Korea or Japan today, you know, someone will escort you to a hotel where you are required to quarantine for two weeks, and they will make sure you do so I think we’ve got to be tougher on the border side.”
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