LONDON (Reuters) – Britain on Tuesday launched its third blockade of COVID-19 with the government calling for a last-ditch national effort to defeat the spread of a virus that has infected one in 50 citizens before mass vaccinations would change the current.
Finance Minister Rishi Sunak announced a new £ 4.6 billion ($ 6.2 billion) package of business grants to help keep people at work and in businesses until the measures are gradually relaxed. at the earliest from mid-February, but probably later.
Britain has been one of the countries hardest hit by COVID-19, with the second-highest death toll in Europe and an economy that suffered the strongest contraction in the Seven group during the first wave of infections last spring.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the latest data show that 2% of the population was currently infected, more than a million people in England.
“When everyone looks at the position, people overwhelmingly understand that we have no choice,” he told a news conference.
More than 1.3 million people in Britain have already received the first dose of vaccination against COVID-19, but that is not enough to have an impact yet on transmission.
Johnson announced the new blockade on Monday afternoon, saying the new highly contagious variant of the coronavirus first identified in Britain was spreading so rapidly that the National Health Service risked being overwhelmed in 21 days.
In England alone, some 27,000 people are hospitalized with COVID, 40% more than during the first peak in April, and infection figures are expected to rise further after an increase in socialization over the Christmas period. .
Since the start of the pandemic, more than 75,000 people have died in the UK within 28 days of testing positive for coronavirus, according to official data. The number of new infections daily rose from 60,000 for the first time on Tuesday.
A Savanta-ComRes survey conducted just after Johnson’s address suggested that four out of five adults in England supported the closure.
“I definitely think it was the right decision to make,” said 28-year-old Londoner Kaitlin Colucci. “I just hope everyone can’t work too hard to have to be inside again.”
Downing Street said Johnson had canceled a visit to India later this month to focus on the response to the virus, and Buckingham Palace convened this year’s traditional summer festivities.
VACCINATIONS ARE KEY
Under the new rules in England, schools are closed to most pupils, people should work from home if possible and all hospitality and non-essential shops are closed. Semi-autonomous executives from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have imposed similar measures.
As infection rates soar across Europe, other countries are also reducing public life. Germany is expected to extend its strict blockade until the end of the month and Italy will maintain national restrictions in place this weekend while relaxing sidewalks on weekdays.
Sunak’s latest grant package adds to the staggering £ 280bn of UK government support already announced for this year to prevent a total economic collapse.
The new blockade will likely cause the economy to shrink again, though not as much as during the first blockade last spring. JP Morgan economist Allan Monks said he expected the economy to shrink 2.5% in the first quarter of 2021, compared to nearly 20% in the second quarter of 2020.
To end the cycle of blockades, the government is fixing on vaccines with its hopes. It aims to vaccinate all residents of nursing homes and their caregivers, all those over the age of 70, all front-line health and social care workers and all those who are clinically extremely vulnerable to mid-February.
But Prime Minister Michael Gove urged caution as to when this could translate into a reduction in restrictions.
“We will be able to review the progress we made on February 15 … and hopefully we will be able to phase out the restrictions later, but what I can’t do is predict, no one can predict exactly what we will be able to relax and when,” he said. tell Sky News.
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Additional reports by Sarah Young, Michael Holden, Andy Bruce, William Schomberg, Ben Makori, and William James; writing by Estelle Shirbon; edited by Guy Faulconbridge, Raissa Kasolowsky and Jonathan Oatis