Britain imposes tougher rules to tackle new Covid-19 strain

LONDON • British Prime Minister Boris Johnson imposed a tighter set of coronavirus controls on millions of people in England yesterday, telling them to stay home, and drastically scaled back plans to ease restrictions over Christmas.

With the average number of cases in England soaring because of a new, more contagious strain of the virus, Mr Johnson said the government had to take urgent action.

"I know how much emotion people invest in this time of year... I know how disappointing this will be," Mr Johnson told a news conference. "There is no alternative open to me."

London and south-east England - with about a third of the English population - are currently in the highest level of a three-tier system of rules, and will now be placed in a new "Tier 4" level.

People will be required to stay at home except for essential reasons such as work, and non-essential retail will close, as will indoor leisure and entertainment. Social mixing will be limited to meeting one other person in an outdoor space.

Mr Johnson had said on Friday he hoped England would not need a third lockdown after Christmas.

He had also resisted calls to change plans to ease restrictions for five days over the festive period and allow three separate households to meet indoors.

However, those now in Tier 4 will not be allowed to mix with others over Christmas. And all others will now be allowed to see friends and family for only one day.

The new rules came into effect at midnight yesterday.

England's chief medical officer Chris Whitty confirmed yesterday that the new virus strain, which surfaced in the country, could spread faster. He called for greater public vigilance to reduce the transmission.

"As a result of the rapid spread of the new variant, preliminary modelling data and rapidly rising incidence rates in the South East, (an expert body advising the government) now considers that the new strain can spread more quickly," he said.

He noted that while there was no current evidence showing the variant caused a higher mortality rate or impacted vaccines, urgent work was under way to confirm this.

"We have alerted the World Health Organisation and are continuing to analyse the available data to improve our understanding," Dr Whitty said.

Britain reported 27,052 new Covid-19 cases yesterday and 534 deaths. The reproduction "R" number is estimated to be between 1.1 and 1.2, meaning the number of cases is rapidly increasing.

"Failing to act decisively now will mean further suffering," Dr Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust and a member of the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, said on Twitter.

"We must keep asking ourselves 'are we doing enough, are we acting quickly enough'."

The opposition Labour Party said the tier system had failed to curb the virus' spread. "It has been apparent for some days that the virus is again out of control in parts of the country," said Mr Jonathan Ashworth, Labour's health spokesman.

REUTERS