The outbreak of the 2019 coronavirus disease (Chinese Communist Virus, COVID-19) variant in the United Kingdom has been extended, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson announcing this evening that England will again be closed from midnight, with schools taking distance learning until mid-February.
Johnson said in a televised speech that the development of the new variant of the virus is “disheartening and alarming”. Scientists believe the transmission rate of the variant is 50 to 70 percent higher than the old virus, and hospitals are facing the greatest pressure since the outbreak.
Johnson said that based on the current state of the epidemic, “we obviously have to do more” to stop the outbreak of the variant virus and help people get vaccinated, so he declared a city closure in England, people must stay at home, unless necessary for shopping, sports, medical reasons, etc., can not go out, and those who can not work at home can go out to work.
He also said that primary and secondary schools will be taught at a distance from tomorrow, unless parents are essential staff or children from vulnerable families need to attend school.
Johnson said government medical experts have advised England to go on alert level 5, which means the health care system will reach capacity within 21 days if nothing is done. However, he also noted that this closure is different from the previous 2 because the UK is “simultaneously undergoing the largest vaccination program in its history.
Johnson & Johnson said that more people are currently vaccinated in the UK than in all of Europe combined.
The UK today began administering the vaccine, developed by Oxford University and pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, to people. Last December, the UK was also the first country in the world to administer the vaccine developed by Pfizer (USA) and BioNTech (Germany). The U.K. currently has two vaccines available for administration and hopes to speed up the administration process.
Johnson said he thinks the situation will improve by mid-February, when the government will be able to get the first dose of the vaccine to the top four priority groups. The four groups include residents and caregivers of nursing facilities, people over 70 years old, and all front-line health care workers and social workers.
If all of these groups were vaccinated, Johnson & Johnson said, it would remove a large portion of the population from the risk of infection. Then we can lift a lot of restrictions,” Johnson said.
Johnson said he thinks the next few weeks “will be the hardest,” but he also thinks it will be the last phase before the epidemic improves.
According to statistics, 407 people died within 28 days of being diagnosed in the UK today, bringing the cumulative number of people who have died from the disease to 75,431. The number of confirmed cases rose by 58,784, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 2,713,563.
The BBC reports that the outbreak in England is apparently more severe than when the second closure was implemented last November. On Nov. 5 last year, the infection rate in England was about 247 per 100,000 people, but now it has climbed to 519, nearly twice as many.
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