Boris Johnson has announced that England is to enter its third national lockdown, which means the government is instructing everyone to “stay at home”, and that all schools will close from tomorrow.
The prime minister made the call in a televised address on Monday evening, in which he said the “weeks ahead will be hardest yet”.
“As I speak to you tonight, our hospitals are under more pressure from Covid than at any time since the start of the pandemic,” he said.
It comes as government figures today revealed the UK has reached another record daily high of 58,784 new coronavirus cases, making this the seventh consecutive day in a row there have been over 50,000 new Covid cases across Britain.
Scotland’s Nicola Sturgeon announced earlier on Monday that Scotland would also enter a national lockdown, and that it was now law that all residents living on Scotland’s mainland must “stay home”.
Meanwhile, the first doses of the Oxford University and AstraZeneca vaccine have been administered. Just over half a million doses will be available from Monday, in what Matt Hancock, the health secretary, described as a “pivotal moment” in the UK’s fight against the coronavirus.
