In an interview on the BBC’s “The Andrew Marr Show”, Johnson was pressured to see if the current restrictions in the hardest-hit areas of England were enough, as hospitals were filled with Covid-19 patients. .
“We may have to do things in the coming weeks that are tougher in many parts of the country, I am fully reconciled to that,” Johnson said. “I bet the people of this country reconcile with that,” he added.
Pressed to work out what those toughest restrictions might be, Johnson said, “Clearly there are a number of tougher measures we should consider. I don’t want to speculate, I won’t speculate now on what they would be.
“It is clear that the school closure we had to do in March is one of those things (…),” he added, as controversy over the government’s mixed messages about reopening schools continues to dominate the headlines.
Echoing his warning on the same program in October last year, Johnson warned, “He’s injured and will be injured.”
But the prime minister insisted that in the spring the situation across the country should improve as more people are vaccinated.
Under the current system, most of England is subject to the harshest Level 3 and Level 4 restrictions, with the latter applied throughout London, with a strict message of staying at home.
On Saturday, the UK recorded its highest daily increase in coronavirus infections since the start of the pandemic, with 57,725 new coronavirus cases and 445 deaths. The country has been one of the hardest hit in Europe, with more than 2.6 million infections in total and nearly 75,000 dead.
But some scientists have warned that stricter measures are needed to control a new, more infectious variant of the virus, which has spread in recent weeks to London, south-east England and parts of Wales.
Some hospitals in London are now nearly two-thirds with Covid-19 patients, Royal College of Physicians President Andrew Goddard said on Saturday.
Both primary and secondary schools in London and other parts of the south-east of England will remain closed for at least the next two weeks for face-to-face learning, with the exception of vulnerable pupils and children of critical workers. The return of high school students has been delayed throughout England.
The hopes of mass vaccination
The UK government hopes to return to some normalcy in the rapid introduction of vaccines, giving priority to the elderly and those who are clinically vulnerable, as well as health and social care workers.
Asked about the number of doses available for the Covid-19 Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine, which was approved by UK regulators on Wednesday, Johnson told Marr that 530,000 doses would be ready for administration as of Monday, in addition. of the “approximately one million” The Pfizer / BioNTechCovid-19 vaccine is already distributed.
However, he was unable to say how many doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine were prepared for administration.
“We hope we can make tens of millions [of Covid-19 vaccines] in the next three months, I can certainly give you that figure, “the prime minister said.
Johnson said the strategy was based on the use of three vaccines, the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine and the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine, both approved in the UK last month, and the Modern vaccine, which would be ready for use. ” soon “.
Echoing what he said on the same show in October last year, Johnson said, “I thought things would be better in the spring. I’ll stick with that.”
Earlier Sunday, UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock tweeted that the country had administered 1 million doses of Pfizer / BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, saying “the end is in sight”.
Lots of the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine have begun arriving in hospitals ready for use starting Monday.
The vaccine is cheaper and easier to distribute than the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine, as it can be kept at normal refrigerator temperature for at least six months. Both Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna vaccines should be stored frozen.
New threat variant
Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted on Sunday that her cabinet would meet the next day to “consider further action to limit the spread” of the most contagious variant that has raised infection rates in England and that he would remember that Parliament would listen to his decision.
“We, like other countries, are in a race between this fastest-growing strain of Covid and the vaccination program,” he said.
“All decisions at the moment are tough, with hard impacts. Vaccines give us a way out, but this new tension makes the period here (and) then the most dangerous since the start of the pandemic. So , the responsibility of the government must act quickly (and) decisively in the national interest, ”he said.
Johnson withdrew against Marr’s suggestion that his government had not fully prepared for the winter challenges and the possibility of a coronavirus mutation, despite being warned of the threats in a government-commissioned document in July.
“This government has taken every possible step we can reasonably take to prepare this country for the consequences of the winter,” Johnson said. “What we couldn’t predict, I think, reasonably, was the arrival of a new variant of the virus, which was spreading between 50 and 70% faster. Once we understood that on December 18, I think. .. took decisive action “.
As of January 1, at least 30 countries, including the United States, had reported cases of the most infectious variant of coronavirus first detected in the United Kingdom.
There is no evidence that the variant is more fatal or causes more serious illness, according to health officials.