The UK imposes national blockade as new Covid-19 voltage spreads

The imposition of a third national closure came after top government medical officials warned that the most contagious strain was spreading rapidly across the country and that some hospitals risked being overwhelmed within three weeks if not new restrictions were put in place.

There are now more Covid-19 patients in British hospitals than at the height of the pandemic in the spring. Johnson said the fight against the virus had reached a critical stage. “Clearly we need to do more together to control this new variant,” he said.

The British government is pursuing a logistical career while trying to vaccinate its population to curb the spread of the virus and protect vulnerable people. Britain moved faster than other European nations to approve and deploy Covid-19 vaccines. To date, more than one million people have received a vaccine against Covid-19 in the UK

However, the new variant of the virus has been consolidated in the country since December and is spreading rapidly, scientists in the British government have warned. Johnson said scientists estimated it to be 50% to 70% more transmissible than previous variants.

The epidemiologist model that stops the exponential spread of the virus will require vaccination of about two million people a week and strict restrictions on social distancing. Added to the concerns is the arrival of another highly contagious mutation of the virus from South Africa.

Infection rates in the UK have already started to rise. The number of people who tested positive for Covid-19 doubled over the past week to 366,000 as of Monday. Hospitalizations have increased by 30% in one week. The number of deaths a week rose a quarter to 4,228.

The accumulation of the last blockade was marked by Johnson gradually tightening the rules amid the outcry of scientific advisers who said the British system of regional restrictions did not work. As late as Sunday, Mr. Johnson urged parents to send their children to school whenever possible.

The government suspended announcing a stricter national shutdown while awaiting evidence of how stricter social restrictions in the south of the country would affect the spread of the virus.

Earlier Monday, Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon moved to close Scotland until the end of January.

With the start of the vaccine launch developed by AstraZeneca PLC and Oxford University on Monday, government officials expect vaccination rates to rise significantly in the second half of the month. Britain has already established nearly 1,000 mass injection sites across the country and has recruited thousands of retired nurses and doctors to administer the shootings. The government is running to inoculate the 13 million Britons who are considered most at risk for the virus.

“We are now implementing the largest vaccination program in our history,” Johnson said. By mid-February, everyone most at risk for the virus should have received a vaccine, he said. Many restrictions can be removed at this time, Johnson said.

Both the AstraZeneca-Oxford trait and the vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc.

and BioNTech SE which was approved in the UK in early December require two doses to be fully effective.

Amid a bottleneck in supply, Britain wants to get more vaccines for more people by lengthening the time between the first and second dose, hoping to give more people immunity by giving more people a chance before to receive a second.

Late last month, British medical chiefs wrote to health professionals arguing that allowing a 12-week distance between shots would ensure more people could receive a basic level of protection. “As with all decisions during this pandemic, it is a balance of risks and benefits,” they wrote.

Some experts question whether the data respond to this approach. Pfizer said there was no data to show that a single dose of its vaccine offered protection after 21 days. But a committee advising the British government on vaccination and vaccination said last month that there was no evidence that Pfizer’s shot acted differently than the Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines, the latter of which saw a strong immune response after a longer distance between shots.

Even with higher vaccination rates, restrictions are likely to be needed for some time. A study by Imperial College London found that the new mutated variant of coronavirus increases the number of “Rs”, or the average number of people each person with the infection becomes infected, between 0.4 and 0. 7. This could negate the effect of existing social distancing restrictions that existed in much of the country before Monday.

This is the third time the UK has entered national closure. Blockades were already implemented in the UK in March and November to curb the spread of the virus.

“Now more than ever we need to get together,” Johnson said. “We are entering the final phase of the struggle.”

Write to Max Colchester at [email protected]