boris johnson has announced that england
will once again enter a period of
lockdown tonight
to be enforced by law from the early
hours of wednesday morning
in a televised address from downing
street the prime minister said he
believed this was a pivotal moment in
the fight against the pandemic
and that the weeks ahead would be the
hardest yet
england has now joined scotland wales
and northern ireland
in implementing tougher new restrictions
faced with a surging number
of new cases mr johnson said that people
living in england
should stay at home and could only leave
for exceptional reasons
those include shopping for essential
items and going to work where people
can't work from home like in the
previous lockdowns
outdoor exercise is allowed those who
are extremely clinically vulnerable
are being asked to shield again and all
schools in england will be closed to
most pupils
with online learning until after the
february half term
at the earliest and most gcse and
a-level exams
are not likely to go ahead in england
this year
but on this day of unrelenting gloom
there is nonetheless
a significant cause for hope because the
oxford astrazeneca vaccine
has started its rollout today following
pfizer last month
with the plan to vaccinate at least 10
million
people by mid-february more on the
vaccine in a moment but first our
political editor
laura koonsberg on the day's events
since the pandemic began last year
the whole united kingdom has been
engaged in a great
national effort to fight cobid an effort
that isn't over
not even close as downey street points
the finger of blame
at the new variant spreading fast as i
speak to you tonight
our hospitals are under more pressure
from kovid
than at any time since the start of the
pandemic with most of the country
already under extreme measures it's
clear that we need to do more
that means the government is once again
instructing you to stay at home
that includes children who he said
should go to school just this morning
our kitchen tables or shared sofas
become offices and classrooms again
primary schools secondary schools and
colleges across england
must move to remote permit provision
from tomorrow
except for vulnerable children and the
children of key workers
this might feel agonizingly familiar but
there is one
big difference we're now rolling out the
biggest vaccination program
in our history by the middle of february
if things go well and with a fair wind
in our sails
we expect to have offered the first
vaccine dose to everyone
in the four top priority groups
nearly 14 million offers planned to the
most vulnerable and the most elderly
the doors could be unlocked in about six
weeks but there's a list of big ifs
if the rollout of the vaccine program
continues
to be successful if deaths
start to fall as the vaccine takes
effect
and critically if everyone
plays their part by following the rules
then i hope we can steadily move out of
lockdown reopening schools after the
february half term
and starting cautiously to move regions
down the tiers
i want to say to everyone right across
the uk that i know how tough
this is but now more than ever
we must pull together the weeks ahead
will be the hardest yet but i really do
believe
that we're entering the last phase of
the struggle because
with every jab that goes into our arms
we are tilting the odds against kovid
and in favor of the british people
so with the force of the law most of
life will retreat again behind closed
doors
chairs on tables empty streets
silent dinner halls corridors falling
quiet
in every corner of the uk i know that
the next few weeks will be incredibly
difficult
i'm sorry to ask for further sacrifices
after nine
long months of them but these sacrifices
are necessary
these are decisions that politicians
never wanted to have to take again
but choices they've made because beds
wards and hospitals
are filling in a way that could threaten
all kinds of care
we cannot keep going in this direction
or our
national health service will fall over
it will not be able to cope with what is
going on
and i'm quite sure our community does
not want us to be in that situation
the measures for england will come into
law in the early hours of wednesday
mps will have a vote after that but
there's unlikely to be much resistance
these measures are necessary sadly
and therefore we support the package of
measures that the prime minister has
just
outlined and i think whatever our
criticisms and challenges of the
government we've all got to pull
together now
to make this work follow me good morning
everybody
this time the hope a needle in millions
of arms provides the way out of all of
this
but the lockdown we'll live through
first is far from being a quick sting
laura kunsberg bbc news westminster
well as i mentioned a short while ago
all schools in england will close to
most pupils
from tomorrow until the february half
term
at the earliest and summer exams gcse's
a-levels
will mostly be cancelled our education
editor brahman jeffries has more details
some schools did not reopen today staff
too worried about the new variant of
kovid
tonight the prime minister accepting the
virus
spreads in schools and i want to stress
that the problem is not that schools are
unsafe
for children children are still very
unlikely to be severely
affected by even the new variant of
covid
the problem is that schools may
nonetheless act as
vectors for transmission causing the
virus
to spread between households
for secondary schools and teenagers
another
massive u-turn gcses and day levels
will be cancelled emily due to sit seven
gcses
and her mum nicola were stunned i was
just
really shocked and really upset i feel
like i've done
so much work the gcse has been like my
whole entire goal for two whole years
i don't know how the teachers are going
to i don't know what evidence they've
got now
um and what the plan is there's nothing
you know there was a statement and then
nothing else
so we feel like the rug's been pulled
out from under us a little bit now
for children just reunited with friends
now
more remote learning at home education
unions say
it's the right decision made late
we've thrown together thousands and
thousands of families today for a day
and exposed them to that that risk of
infection
and whether that was necessary or not it
is now called into question
what the government's really got to do
is work with the profession we can see
things happening on the ground before it
comes through in data sets
why this primary school in warrington
was open today
they are ready to stream lessons online
but say that's a challenge for many
families
children find it very difficult to
access the live streaming lessons that
we offer online
our online offer is a very strong and
robust offer
but it doesn't mean that all our
children will be able to access it
because they don't have enough devices
or they don't have the internet capacity
a primary teacher owen is at home
recovering from covid
a pupil tested positive at the end of
last term
by the new year owen was in hospital he
says the prime minister
had to act i was
pretty scared at some point and um
especially when i looked around the ward
i was in this
um acute ward for
i think we've got to get a lid on it and
as quickly and as securely as we can
before start
really opening schools and things back
up again properly and fully
everything has changed for them this
year now
it's changing again brown and jeffries
bbc news
so let's go live to westminster and talk
to our political editor laura koonsberg
laura let's put today's events into the
context of action now being taken
in all four nations of the uk that's
right hugh an action that politicians in
every corners of the uk
wanted to avoid at all costs there's no
question about that this is something
that politicians were very very
reluctant to do
but very strong statements publicly and
i understand a pretty strong push
privately
from all of the chief medical officers
across the country basically left
politicians feeling that they had
no choice really but to take more of our
choices away from
all of us and to once again say that the
country has to stay at home
you can see from the numbers and
statistics that we've been hearing about
today how this new strain of coronavirus
hasn't just gone up gradually in a graph
it's not just even gone up in a
strong curve it's almost going up in a
straight line
defying the kind of expectation that
anybody might have had of it and the
knock-on effect of that on the health
service is there
for all to see so the fact is that
politicians have come to this place
reluctantly but they have felt that they
have had no option but to take this
now for boris johnson in particular as
critics this will see as more evidence
of him only wanting to make decisions at
the last minute always being caught
behind the curve rather than being out
in front of the pandemic
i think even his supporters would
acknowledge that he is more comfortable
being the deliverer of good news
rather than wanting to confront things
that are really bad and difficult to
hear in public
but just remember though while covid is
absolutely at the forefront of
politicians minds right now
the impacts that come along with another
lockdown like this
pressure on the economy the impact on
kids being out of school
and of course pressure on other kinds of
health beyond the pandemic
are very very serious too these
decisions are not ones
that have been easy to take for any of
our leaders
laura many thanks again laura kunsberg
there with the latest forest at
westminster