England will be locked down until mid-February as Covid-19 cases continue to soar.
The Prime Minister announced that all primary schools, secondaries and colleges will move to remote provision from tomorrow (January 5).
This does not apply to the children of key workers and vulnerable children who will be able to attend in person.
During an televised address to the nation this evening (January 4) Boris Johnson said the national lockdown will come into effect in law as soon as possible.
Measures are expected to stay in place until mid-February.
It comes after the UK’s four Chief Medical Officers met today to discuss the surging cases, which are thought to be down to the new variant of the virus.
They agreed to advise increasing the UK’s Alert Level from 4 to 5.
It is the first time the level has reached this highest Level 5 - which indicates a risk of healthcare services being overwhelmed within 21 days without urgent action.
Cases of Covid-19 are rising rapidly in every part of the country.
There were 26,626 Covid-19 patients in hospital in England on January 4 - 40 per cent above the highest level of the first wave.
That number represents a week-on-week increase of more than 30 per cent.
During the first wave of the pandemic hospital admissions peaked at 18,974 on April 12.
Across the UK, there were 80,664 positive coronavirus tests on December 29 and a further 65,571 on December 30.
The case rate in England up to December 30 was over 518 per 100,000 people. On December 1 the rate was 151.3.
