UK PM Boris Johnson announces complete lockdown as COVID-19 cases surge

Nearly 56 million people will return to a full lockdown until mid-February to try to slow a surge in COVID-19 cases. United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the lockdown on Monday.

The measure which include the closure of primary and secondary schools, will come into effect Wednesday, UK PM said in a televised address.

Johnson said a new, more-contagious variant of the coronavirus was spreading at a great speed and urgent action was needed to slow it down.

“As I speak to you tonight, our hospitals are under more pressure from COVID than any time since the start of the pandemic,” Johnson said in a televised address to the country as he ditched his regional approach to fighting the pandemic.

“With most of the country already under extreme measures, it’s clear that we need to do more together to bring this new variant under control.

“We must therefore go into a national lockdown, which is tough enough to contain this variant. That means the government is once again instructing you to stay at home.”

Johnson said that as of Monday, almost 27,000 people with Covid were in hospital, 40 percent more than at the peak of first wave of the outbreak on April last year.

Last Tuesday, more than 80,000 people tested positive in just 24 hours.

The new measures are similar to those during the first, three -month lockdown from March to June last year.

Scotland announced similar measures that would come into force from midnight on Tuesday.