England could be set for a New Year’s Eve closing as the country faces the new strain of rapid-spread coronavirus and the government warns that restrictions could be increased.
Sky News reported that on December 30, the date of the next revision of the tier system, much of the country is expected to join London and the south-east at Tier 4, which has the toughest restrictions.
During a press conference on December 21, Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance warned that the spread of the new strain would likely require further restrictions.
“The evidence for this virus is that it spreads easily, it’s more transmissible, we need to make sure we have the right level of restrictions,” Vallance said.
“I think it’s likely that this will grow in number of variants across the country. I think it’s therefore likely that measures will need to be increased in some places on time and not reduced.”
According to the latest data, on 21 December the UK reported 33,364 daily cases of Covid-19 and 215 deaths.
Complete list of all countries that have banned flights from the UK for fear of new virus variants
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