London: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has imposed a tighter set of coronavirus controls on millions of people in England, 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, significantly more contagious strain of the virus, 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,” Johnson told a news conference on Saturday. “There is no alternative open to me.”
London and southeast 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.
A new strain of coronavirus identified in the United Kingdom is up to 70 percent more infectious but it is not thought to be more deadly and vaccines should still be effective, Johnson and scientists said.
