18 million people in england and all
three million who live in wales have
seen
extra covert restrictions come into
force today
as ministers said a new variant of
coronavirus is
out of control in england areas within
the new tier
iv include london kent and most of essex
people should stay home non-essential
shops as well as gyms and hairdressers
have closed
christmas bubble mixing is no longer
permitted
the festive rules have changed in the
rest of england too bubbles
will now be allowed to meet only on
christmas day
wales's new lockdown restrictions will
ease just for christmas day
scotland will also allow bubbles only on
the 25th
and the mainland will then go into the
highest level of restrictions
from boxing day that is also where
northern ireland begins its previously
announced
new lockdown well tonight several
countries are responding to the new
variant of the virus by suspending
travel from the uk including freight
heading to france
our first report is from our political
correspondent
nick hurdley what a difference
a day can make london's oxford street
normally one of the busiest for shopping
in europe
deserted today as parts of england
entered a new lockdown
and millions more faced up to a
significantly scaled back christmas
i was pinning all of my hopes on on this
moment now
to get home for christmas people like
michaela mccann
who works as an occupational therapist
in surrey and now
can't get home to northern ireland
everybody had made their plans
and it just seems like it's it's just a
bit truly it's just
really difficult to to accept and i feel
like
like myself my resilience has sort of
depleted through the year and i think
this was just one like final kick
the government said it was forced to act
because of a new variant of the virus
that's thought to spread much quicker
the new variant
is out of control and we need to bring
it under control and
this news about the new variant has been
a
an incredibly difficult end to frankly
an awful year
wales entered lockdown again at midnight
in scotland and northern ireland
new restrictions are coming just after
christmas and new
tier 4 restrictions mean in london the
east
and the east of england people are being
urged to stay at home
we don't know how long this these
measures are going to be in place
it may be for some time until we can get
the vaccine going
that isn't an easy thing to say it all
feels very different
to wednesday when the four nations
agreed that there would still be a
relaxation of the law
over christmas but ministers here say
they were given
new evidence on friday about how the new
variant of the virus spreads
and that they had to act quickly others
think they were too slow
how could the government allow people to
go on as they were labour's leader this
morning said that the prime minister
had waited until the 11th hour because
he was reluctant to make an
unpopular decision england scotland and
labour run wales all took
pretty drastic action yesterday after
being briefed by the expert so
what makes you think in terms of this
new variant that the government
should have acted sooner to put all of
this on the new variant
is wrong the infection was out of
control and that's why the government
and the prime minister should have
grasped this instead of flippantly
on wednesday simply saying have a merry
little christmas it was obvious
that the indicators were all in the
wrong direction the government says
that's wrong
that when the data changed their
approach had to as well
but for many the last couple of days
been a heartbreaking end
to what's already been a uniquely
difficult year
there has been another sharp increase in
the number of positive cases reported
today
nearly 36 000 almost double the level
reported last week and it's exactly
figures like that
the ministers will point to to say
that's why they had to make this
decision
ultimately boris johnson has decided
that for all the political flack he may
take from
labour who say he acted too slow from
some in his own party
who say that he's gone too far that
that's worth it because of the scale of
the emergency
nick erdly at westminster thank you very
much well the latest developments have
sparked bans on travel
from the uk into several countries
including france
which is barring arrivals by air sea
rail or
road including freight germany italy and
the netherlands
and ireland are also restricting travel
here's our transport correspondent
caroline davies
this weekend has already seen queues of
lorries waiting at dover
today's news that france has banned all
forms of transport from the uk
for 48 hours from midnight including
goods being transported as freight
has many worried this will get much
worse this is an
absolute hammer blow after all the cues
that we've had at ports in the last week
caused by brexit stockpiling uh and of
course the christmas rush
so there's real confusion real
uncertainty
uh in the industry tonight obviously the
ban is into france are there other
routes that
um these goods could be taken into in a
different part of europe instead
there are other routes other sea routes
other ports
to other parts of europe that can be
used but they are a very long way round
compared to the
short straights of dover calais and
really
it's not a great alternative for where
we are now with just a few days to
christmas
the prime minister will chair a cobra
meeting tomorrow to discuss the
situation
the euro tunnel closed its foxton
terminal at 10 pm this evening
the port of dover has closed to all
traffic leaving the uk
while france is currently the only
country to have imposed restrictions on
freight
many other european countries have
placed bans on british passengers
coming into the uk including italy
ireland
the netherlands and belgium concerned
about spreading the new strain of the
virus
in the uk some passengers were still
boarding trains from london to
manchester this afternoon
despite the fact that rules against
leaving tier iv came in last night
other than for legally permitted reasons
the british transport police
have said that there will be more
officers at major transport hubs
and that officers will only use
enforcement if absolutely necessary
in scotland the police have said they
will double their presence in the border
areas
but that it wasn't appropriate for
officers to establish checkpoints or
roadblocks
yesterday's announcement has resulted in
christmas plans being upended across the
country
not least those of businesses thrown
into doubt at the uk's border
in the final few days before christmas
caroline davis bbc news
well the french action has caused the
port of dover and also foxton to be
closing to outgoing traffic from now
for the next 48 hours our business
editor simon jack
is here with me in the studio how much
of an impact is this going to have simon
well potentially very serious there was
already disruption at the ports the
government
are taking it seriously tonight there
will be meetings with the department for
transport the foreign office and the
home office and tomorrow morning
uh the prime minister will chair a
meeting of the cobra group to assess
the situation as for business we're
getting um
a lot of different reaction hauliers are
telling me that although inbound
traffic is still inbound freight can
still come in
if they can't get out again for 48 hours
many will think twice
about coming in the food and drink
federation says this has the potential
to cause serious disruption to uk
christmas fresh food supplies however
the uh british retail consortium
represents the supermarkets
has a more measured tone they're saying
retailers have stocked up on goods ahead
of christmas which should prevent
immediate problems warehouses are
bulging with food at this
particular time so um now i was down in
dover myself on thursday and there were
mild the tailbacks 10 to 20 miles long
at some point because you have this
disruption of stuff coming out of china
you've got a bit of breaks pre-brexit
stockpiling and you've got that busy
christmas period as one julia chief said
to me so
just when you thought you couldn't get
any worse it does get worse
so some serious disruption in in
prospect here and of course this is
10 days before the uk goes into this
rather unknown period where we don't
know what we're preparing for
um so some you know very testing times
ahead simon thank you we'll be getting
an update on the brexit talks in
brussels in a few minutes time
the latest government figures on
coronavirus show that there were 35
928 new infections recorded in the
latest
24-hour period which means an average
number of 27
249 new cases per day in the last week
there were 1821 people admitted to
hospital on average each day
in the week to last wednesday 326
deaths have been reported for the last
24 hours that's people who died within
28 days of a positive
covet 19 test it means an average of 462
deaths per day
in the past week and the total number of
uk deaths is now 67 thousand
four hundred and one
the sharply increased number of new
cases is being linked to the new variant
of covid being more infectious
concerns over this have led to the
widespread travel restrictions announced
this evening our health correspondent
catherine burns reports now on what we
know about the mutation
and how it happened since the pandemic
started we've learned a lot about
coronavirus
but it's been learning about us too it's
had practice at dealing with our immune
systems and has developed an extra way
of fighting us
this new variant it's changed
23 times many differences are linked to
the all-important
spike protein the part of the virus that
lets
it bind onto human cells so the worry is
that this mutation
could make it easier for the virus to
infect us
doctors think this new variant could
spread up to 70 percent
faster although that figure is just an
estimate
scientists advising the government also
say it could increase the r number
which shows how the virus can spread by
between 0.4
and 0.9 when we find the virus finding
the virus in the nose and throat
but the higher amount of virus means
that people are likely to be
more infectious than they would
otherwise be and this means that we need
to reiterate
the social distancing measures keep your
distance reduce your contacts
one key question is will vaccines still
work against this
well the vaccine trains our immune
systems to recognize and react to the
spike protein and the virus
and it has changed but we're talking
about tweaks rather than
huge differences it's early days but
scientists think the vaccines are now
more than ever the key to getting this
under control
another question is are people more
likely to become very sick or even die
if they get infected with this well
so far there is no evidence to show that
this variant causes more severe illness
in any one single person
but it's thought that somewhere between
1 in 100 and
1 in 150 people who get coronavirus will
die
from it and if this variant is more
infectious it could cause more cases
and so more deaths we've already seen
ambulances queuing outside of hospitals
and some trusts cancelling routine
surgery
as they struggle to cope with the
pandemic and winter pressures
now this too we're 11 000 beds fewer
than we were last year because of
infection control
and of the remaining beds 16 000 of them
are occupied by covid patients
that's 2 000 more than eight days ago so
what chief executives are saying to us
is it's going to be a nail-biting week
to 10 days for them whilst they see
whether these new measures will have the
desired impact
until enough of us have been vaccinated
the best way to stop this virus
spreading
is to stick to social distancing wear
our masks
wash our hands and to cut contact with
other people
catherine burns bbc news