More areas of the country could be under tier 4 restrictions as the new strain of coronavirus spreads across the UK.
In a Downing Street press conference, Sir Patrick Vallance said the new variant of Covid-19 requires more action as it spreads quicker.
But this could mean more areas of the UK are placed into the new tier 4, which has caused chaos across the south east over the weekend.
Warnings to not travel across the country and to stay local have also been repeated.
Sir Patrick Vallance said: “I think over this period, where in some parts of the country people are mixing with people they haven’t been mixing with as part of Christmas, it’s really important to follow the rules carefully and make an assumption that you could be infectious, you could be the person spreading it to somebody else, and behave accordingly.”
He added: “The doubling time of this infection with a new variant is quite fast, it is more transmissible, it does require more action in order to keep it down and that’s why Tier 4 is important.
“What we did see was that in areas that had lower restrictions, you could still see growth in some places.
“So, it is the case that the measures needed to try to make sure that we reduce contact, we keep the basics in place, make sure that we don’t give the virus a chance to spread, are even more important with the new virus.
“It’s got to be taken incredibly seriously.”
He added: “It’s localised in some places but we know there are cases everywhere, so it’s not as though we can stop this getting into other places, there’s some there already.
“The message has been very clear and, I think I want to reinforce it, is stay local.
“I mean, people shouldn’t be travelling around the country at the moment.”
