Prime Minister Boris Johnson has confirmed UK is “now seeing a second wave of coronavirus, adding: “It’s been inevitable we’d see it in this country.” The Premier said he did not “want to go into bigger lockdown measures” but suggested strict social distancing measures would be necessary to combat the second wave of infections. A new 3-phase set of restrictions is on the cards to avoid a nationwide lockdown but could impose measures to block household to household transmission.
The first-tier would ensure the maintaining of current set of social distancing the Kingdom is currently working with. The second stage would encompass what is currently being held in northeast of England i.e., curfews on hospitality sites and a complete ban on public meetings including those between households. The final third phase could involve full-fledge shutdown.
If the plan is implemented, “Tier two” restrictions are expected to take over on a region-by-region basis, but would eventually spread across the Kingdom. London Mayor Sadiq Khan admitted it was “increasingly likely” that 9mn people in the capital will need to follow the regulations currently active in north-east of the country and might be adopting additional measures as the cases grow.
BBC has been briefed about the imposing of 3-tier mechanism. It shared that governments shielding policy was also being thoroughly reviewed and announcement about a new decision could be made to effectively protect the vulnerable. The new decisions will include a much more tailored tactic to combat the virus. With the COVID-19 expected to be more lethal in the second wave during the winters, officials are already considering the measures that could last until the spring. It has been reported earlier that the government is looking at bringing a short period of tighter lockdown across the country in next week and that the tighter rules will also involve closing of hotels, bars and other hospitality venues. The decision comes at a time when UK has recorded new 4,322 active cases on its soil.
Public Health England’s medical director Yvonne Doyle warned of “far worse things to come” as UK recorded a host of new cases.
“Clearly when you look at what is happening, you’ve got to wonder whether we need to go further than the rule of six that we brought in,” the prime minister said, referring to measures introduced on Monday.
He added that “the British people have done an amazing job – they’ve brought that peak down by discipline” but that “people find it difficult to keep this up, it’s difficult to maintain that discipline for a long time”.
Speaking in Oxfordshire, PM Boris Johnson said the government would keep “everything under review’ but a second national lockdown was “the last thing anybody wants”.
“We want to keep schools open. We want to keep the economy open as far aw we possibly can, we want to keep businesses going. The only way we can do that is, obviously, if people follow the guidance.”
