LONDON — England will enter a one-month national lockdown on Thursday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced Saturday, warning that without tougher restrictions the country could see “several thousand” COVID-19 deaths a day.
Announcing the new measures, which will see all pubs, restaurants, non-essential shops and other venues forced to close, Johnson said the country had “no alternative,” with current modeling showing that the rise in infections would mean the NHS would be overwhelmed within weeks without new measures, with healthcare staff “forced to choose between saving COVID patients and non-COVID patients.”
Johnson’s Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance, appearing alongside the prime minister at a Saturday night Downing Street press conference, said there was now the potential for deaths over the winter “to be twice as bad or more compared to the first wave” in the U.K.
The new measures, which will be debated and voted on by the U.K. parliament on Wednesday, will remain in place until December 2, when England will revert to its current regional approach to coronavirus restrictions.
The U.K. recorded another 326 deaths from COVID-19 on Saturday.
The new restrictions, while grueling for the public, will be welcomed by a scientific community that has said for weeks now that the government’s tiered regional approach would not be sufficient to turn the tide on the virus.
However, they are politically extremely difficult for Johnson, who has long argued that his “tier system” is the sensible “balanced” approach and that a national lockdown — even a temporary one – would be profoundly damaging economically. Compounding his political problem, the lead opposition party, Labour, argued for a very similar national lockdown nearly three weeks ago — and won’t let Johnson forget it.
