england is to face a new month-long
lockdown across the nation
starting on thursday and lasting until
the 2nd of december
despite having repeatedly rejected calls
for a nationwide lockdown in favor of
localized tiered measures
boris johnson today declared at a
downing street news conference
that a responsible prime minister could
not ignore the rising numbers of
coronavirus infections
under the lockdown restaurants and pubs
will close but takeaways and deliveries
will be allowed
all non-essential retail will also close
but supermarkets are to stay open
mixing with other households inside
homes or in private gardens will be
banned except for child care
and other forms of support unlike the
first lockdown schools colleges and
universities
will stay open while travel will be
discouraged except for work
here's our political editor laura
kunsberg
misery the prime minister's own
prediction of what a return to lockdown
would feel like the step he never wanted
to take
the instruction again for england to
close its doors reality kicking in
we've got to be humble in the face of
nature and in this country alas
as across much of europe the virus is
spreading
even faster than the reasonable worst
case
scenario and so now is the time to take
action
because there is no alternative and so
now the plan perhaps the hope
is that a month will be enough in
england and even then the country's time
of celebration won't be the same
christmas is going to be different this
year perhaps very different but it's my
sincere hope and belief
that by taking tough action now we can
allow families
across the country to be together
this about turn from the prime minister
this familiar phrase
we will get through this but we must act
now
to contain this autumn surge we're not
going back to the full-scale lockdown
of march in april but i'm afraid
from thursday the basic message is
the same stay at home protect the nhs
and save lives the prime minister didn't
want to be back at the lectern
but this is some of what confronted him
in recent days
a range of projections from several
groups of scientists made public tonight
of the number of people who could die
each day if nothing changed
one suggested more than 4 000 people
all of the projections more serious than
what had been the current worst case
scenario shown in black
dwarfing what happened first time around
shown here in blue
the fear shown in this separate document
leaked to the bbc
which suggests that the nhs in some
parts of england could be
full within a fortnight and if things
continue unchecked
the nhs will not be able to accept any
more patients by christmas week
you were told by your own scientists
many weeks ago that you would have to
take national action
in order to save lives prime minister
what took you so long
this is a a constant struggle and a
balance that
any government has to uh make between
uh lives and and livelihoods i do think
it was
right and rational to go for the
regional approach
the course of the of the pandemic has
changed and it's also right
uh that the government should change and
modulate its response in
in accordance and i make absolutely no
apologies uh for that
thank you all very much stay safe thank
you until now
the prime minister had resisted the
opposition's demands
the delay now will cost the lockdown
will be
longer it'll be harder and there's a
human cost which will be very very real
now there's no denying these measures
are necessary and i'm glad that the
government has
finally taken a decision that it should
have taken weeks ago
the prime minister can't say he wasn't
warned the opposition
some of his own ministers and some of
his own advisors were pushing for a
limited lockdown many weeks ago now
but he chose instead to hold out under
pressure from the treasury and tory back
ventures
choosing instead to try to keep the
disease at bay with a patchwork effect
different regulations in different parts
of the country an effort to try to guard
the economy too
but that judgment now looks like it was
a political accident
waiting to happen there was always a
risk this would happen again
that doesn't make the reality less
painful for the public or problematic
indeed for a prime minister who spent
weeks resisting the move
who once again tonight has told england
to live life behind closed doors
laura joins me now laura as you made
clear there this wasn't what the prime
minister wanted but in the end it was
unavoidable
i think rita by late last night that the
feeling in number 10 was that there was
simply no
moral or political alternative for them
here
but there is a lot that feels familiar
about this it's not just that the prime
minister is basically telling everyone
they're going to be living their lives
basically indoors for the next month
it's familiar too because he's left
himself open to accusations from his
political rivals
that he's been too slow and that delay
could be costly it's familiar as well
for
many people watching tonight that there
will be another huge cost to the economy
and of course all the other terrible
personal costs to lock down just the
impact of having our lives limited in
this way
but there are three very important ways
in which this is also different to what
happened in the spring
first off it's not uk wide wales
northern ireland and scotland
have already been living under various
forms of lockdown or titan restrictions
and have their own timetables and their
own plans for how they might exit from
that second of all i think in particular
schools staying open
that will make the experience of this
very different again for millions of
families watching tonight
but thirdly the government hopes that
there is a way
out of this at the end of a four-week
period
which is they hope a dramatic
acceleration in mass
testing now since the first lockdown
rapid tests
have been developed they do now exist
the challenge for the government is of
course to scale that up
rapidly in order to find a way of living
our lives with this virus potentially in
four or five weeks when the government
wants to lift
these restrictions but i have to say the
political environment is much more
fractious
much tougher for the prime minister than
when this all developed the first time
round
and it is certainly not a moment that
anyone in government approaches with any
enthusiasm
the temptation of course for the
oppositions to say we told you so
but it's clearly a very difficult moment
for downey street this
laura many thanks our political editor
laura cohen spoke there
so what is the data driving the
government's decision to move to a
national lockdown
uh health correspondent catherine de
costa has been looking at the statistics
many still exhausted some still
traumatized
nhs staff are already seeing the impact
of a second surge
they're better prepared than in the
spring with more ppe
treatments and better understanding of
the virus now hospitals are trying to
keep other services running
while seeing rising numbers of covered
patients
hospital leaders who'd been calling for
a lockdown for several weeks
it's going to be very difficult to treat
a full second covered surge alongside
winter when we know the nhs is at its
busiest
that's why we've been arguing very
clearly for quick
decisive clear lockdowns the two
questions
are is this coming quick enough and
secondly will
people actually follow the rules this
slide from the government press briefing
shows the rise in hospital admissions on
the left it shows a peak of 3 000 daily
admissions in april
on the right it shows we're currently at
around a thousand admissions
a day with the projection they'll pass
the spring peak
in the next six weeks without urgent
action
the latest estimates show even with the
tougher tier three restrictions in parts
of england the epidemic still growing
with more than 50 000 new infections a
day spreading among all ages
and rising rapidly in the south health
officials warn many more hospital
admissions and deaths will follow
an early circuit breaker had been
recommended but government advisors
acknowledge
it's a difficult decision there's no
doubt from the point of view of the
spread of covid the earlier you go in
the better
and so that is definitely the case for
the spread of the disease but of course
you know people have to take into
account other things as well and that's
a matter for politicians
the government hopes locking down now
will bring the virus under control and
buy
time to develop mass testing new
treatments
and ultimately a vaccine catherine de
costa
bbc news the latest government figures
show that there were 21
915 new coronavirus infections recorded
in the latest 24-hour period
there have now been more than a million
cases of coronavirus in the uk
the average number of new cases reported
per day in the last week is 22
522 and 326 deaths were reported that's
people who've died within 28 days of a
positive
covet-19 test it means on average in the
past week
259 deaths were announced every day
and it takes the total number of deaths
so far across the uk to 46
555.
well our health editor hugh pim is here
with me and hugh these measures that we
heard today
announced were very much driven by the
fear of what might happen otherwise to
the nhs
yes rita once again protect the nhs is
at the center
of a government message justifying a
lockdown and we had these warnings
throughout the media conference
professor chris witte
talking about the nhs being in
extraordinary trouble
in december if action wasn't taken the
prime minister's saying
the the nhs might not be there for
people if nothing was done and doctors
and nurses might have to choose between
patients patrick valance talking about
deaths each day reaching
the same level as the peak back in april
and of course a series of predictions
we've been hearing about
what about what would happen to
hospitals uh basically hospitals in
england
on these projections in the event of no
action
would run out of beds an extra capacity
brought on for covid patients
even after postponing operations so
those are the warnings if
no official intervention was actually
announced
now of course they want to bring down
virus case numbers through this
lockdown but that might take a couple of
weeks hospital admissions and deaths
will lag behind that because of the
two-week delay or so from the moment
someone becomes ill
if they're going to get seriously ill
before they actually get into hospitals
so
seeing the results of this might take a
little time so nhs hospitals will be
extremely busy
particularly because winter is
approaching as well
hugh thank you very much