Boris Johnson could impose national lockout as schools across the UK close

• Boris Johnson says ‘tougher measures’ are now needed as he comes under pressure to apply a national lockdown as the rapidly spreading coronavirus speeds up hospitals in the UK.
• An explosion in numbers is forcing schools across the country to stay closed after the Christmas holidays.
• Johnson has previously opposed requests for another national exclusion.
• However, he will meet with senior members of his government and advisers on Monday to decide whether a new national exclusion should take place now.
• Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

Boris Johnson is under pressure to impose a new national exclusion in England as large numbers of schools across the country remain closed amid an increase in the new more communicable strain of the coronavirus.

The prime minister said Monday morning that “tougher measures” are now needed to control the virus.

He told reporters during a visit to a London hospital: “If you look at the numbers, there is no doubt, we will have to take stricter measures and we will announce it in due course.”

Opposition Labor Party leader Sir Keir Starmer on sunday asked for an immediate national lockdown due to an explosion in case numbers and hospitalizations during the Christmas holidays.

Families have been allowed by the Johnson government in most parts of England to gather in small numbers on Christmas Day, despite an increase in cases caused by the new strain in the virus.

In some parts of the country, however, hospitals are now more than half full with Covid patients, and some hospitals have oxygen due to an increase in the demand for respirators.

Johnson has repeatedly refused to close schools in England after the first national exclusion last spring, while the education minister has threatened to sue local authorities who closed their schools for early Christmas.

However, secondary schools across the UK now all remain closed until at least mid-January with primary schools in London and other parts of south-east England also closed after a series of twists and turns by Johnson’s government.

Parents in many parts of England where primaries would open on Monday received messages from their children’s primary schools over the weekend informing them that they would not reopen either due to a shortage of teachers.

Teachers across the country have been advised by the National Education Union not to attend schools because of the “serious and imminent danger” to their health caused by the virus.

Education unions believe that recently issued articles by the British Government’s Scientific Advisory Committee last week that schools should close to bring the virus under control mean that any attempt to force schools to open up is a breach of UK safety regulations. is.

As Starmer warns that the situation in the UK is now “clearly out of control”, Johnson is meeting with senior advisers on Monday to decide what new measures should be put in place.

The increase in cases means that more parts of England are likely to be placed in the highest level of constraints, preventing domestic mixing.

As Johnson’s own scientific advisers have warned that more restrictive measures need to be taken, including the closure of schools nationwide, Johnson is apparently under pressure from some members of his cabinet to consider a firmer national response.

Johnson admitted Sunday that more restrictive measures should be taken, but did not specify what decisions will be made or when.

“We may have to do things in the next few weeks that will be more difficult in many parts of the country,” he told the BBC Andrew Marr show.

“I am completely, completely reconciled with it – and I bet the people of this country are reconciled with it, because until the vaccine is really in a massive way, we are fighting this virus with the same set of tools.”