England will enter its toughest nationwide lockdown since March, with schools closed until mid-February, as Boris Johnson warned that the weeks ahead "will be the hardest yet".
As new figures put the UK on course to exceed 100,000 Covid-related deaths before the end of the month without urgent action, the prime minister said once again that people must stay at home, with exercise limited to once a day. All non-essential shops were told to close from Monday night.
The lockdown will last for at least seven weeks, with measures to be reviewed during half-term week. Any relaxation would not come into effect before 22 February.Just a day after urging millions of pupils to return to the classroom, Johnson announced all schools would switch to remote learning until the February half-term, and GCSE and A-level exams were unlikely to go ahead as planned.
The prime minister said parents would "reasonably ask why we did not make this decision sooner", adding: "I completely understand the inconvenience and distress this late change will cause millions of parents and pupils up and down the country."
Comment: So the vicious cycle of new variants, inflated cases and rotating lockdowns begins. Coincidentally, they also have another, very scary, "South African" variant. Are they setting the stage for yet
another lockdown after this one? From
The Telegraph:
The South African variant of coronavirus may be resistant to vaccines and more difficult to pick up through testing, scientists have warned, as they called for the immediate closure of borders.
Health Secretary, Matt Hancock said he was "incredibly worried" about the new mutation saying it was "even more of a problem than the UK variant."
[...]
There are also fears that people who have already had the virus may not be protected from the new mutated virus.
Francois Balloux, professor of computational systems biology at University College London (UCL), said: "The E484K mutation has been shown to reduce antibody recognition.
"As such, it helps the virus SARS-CoV-2 to bypass immune protection provided by prior infection or vaccination. It is not anticipated that this mutation is sufficient for the South African variant to bypass the protection provided by current vaccines.
[...]
The South African variant is known to spread rapidly and is already dominant in the Eastern and Western Cape provinces and scientists are worried it may be able to evade the immune system far more effectively than the UK variant.
Scientists said that further restrictions must be brought in to prevent the further spread.
Lawrence Young, virologist and professor of molecular oncology, at Warwick Medical School at the University of Warwick, said: "While changes in the UK variant are unlikely to impact the effectiveness of current vaccines, the accumulation of more spike mutations in the South African variant are more of a concern and could lead to some escape from immune protection.
"The move to harsher levels of restriction across the country is inevitable. It is essential that we do everything possible to prevent the South African variant from spreading to the UK population.
"Quarantine measures and restricting travel from and to South Africa are imperative."
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Comment: See also: