Three days after Boris Johnson accused his opponents of wanting to “cancel Christmas,” the British Prime Minister announced a new lockdown for London and much of Southeast and East England.
There is no alternative open to me,” Johnson said at a Saturday press conference, explaining that the latest restrictions are a response to a new and rapidly-spreading variant of the coronavirus.
“It may be up to 70 percent more transmissible than the earlier version of the disease,” he said, the Financial News reported. “There is still much that we don’t know… We already know more than enough to be sure that we must act now,”
Cases of coronavirus have doubled in London in the past week, with the new virus variant accounting for 60 percent of new infections, the prime minister’s spokesperson said.
The tighter rules are set to take affect at midnight Saturday and extend at least two weeks. Millions of residents will be asked to cancel holiday plans and travel and stay home except for work, exercise or childcare. All non-essential businesses will have to close until at least Dec. 30.
“I know how much emotion people invest in this time of year…I know how disappointing this will be,” Johnson said at a news conference. “There is no alternative open to me.”
Johnson had argued in Parliament on Wednesday that there was “unanimous agreement” that existing holiday plans should continue” and accused Labour Party Keir Starmer of wanting to “cancel Christmas” for warning about a relaxation of COVID-19 rules over Christmas, Sky News reported. He said a holiday shutdown would be “frankly inhuman.”
At the time, he knew about the new strain of the virus. Last week, the nation’s health secretary warned that at least 60 different regions in the UK saw infections from the more contagious variant.
On Friday, he repeated that he was hoping to avoid a third lockdown.