International News

England to enter full lockdown amidst rising Covid cases: PM Boris Johnson

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced full, restrictive nationwide lockdown in England as the number of covid cases start rising again.

Sentinel Digital Desk

London: UK (United Kingdom) Prime Minister Boris Johnson has recently announced a full nationwide lockdown in England. Termed as the toughest lockdown since March, the newly imposed lockdown will be in place for seven weeks, lasting until about mid-February. Official reports state that the lockdown starts from midnight 00.00 (GMT) on Tuesday. 

According to reports, the lockdown which has been reinstated in earlier restrictive models will affect around 56 million people of the nation. Prime Minister Johnson has even declared complete closure of all schools and colleges for this entire period. 

In addition, the Prime Minister has also declared that no relaxation of any sort will come into effect until 22 February, 2021.

Notably, with the rise of the new covid strain from the country, the number of daily Covid positive cases had increased throughout the nation. As new figures put the UK on course to exceed 100,000 Covid-related deaths before the end of the month without urgent action, the Prime Minister said once again that people must stay at home, with exercise limited to once a day. All non-essential shops were told to close from Monday night.

Johnson, while publicly announcing the decision, said that the weeks ahead under lockdown "will be the hardest yet."

Notably, he had only a day ago urged students of the nation to return to their classrooms for normal and regular classes. However, the recent decision of imposing a complete restrictive lockdown has again put bans on school and college reopening, at least until February during which the covid spread is sought to be kept under check. 

It is worth mentioning that as an alternative to attending physical schooling, Johnson has suggested remote learning as earlier while also stating that GCSE and A-level exams were unlikely to go ahead as planned.

Reportedly, in an 8 pm address to the nation, the Prime Minister said he hoped that 13.9 million of the most vulnerable people in UK would get their first vaccinations by the middle of February. This group of people includes care-home residents and staff, front-line health and social care workers, all over-70s and the clinically extremely vulnerable.