London and southeast England may stay under tighter coronavirus curbs for some time, Britain’s health minister suggested on Sunday, adding that a fast-spreading new strain forced the government to drop plans to ease restrictions for Christmas.
The government faced criticism for imposing an effective lockdown on more than 16 million people just days before Christmas, but Matt Hancock said Saturday’s decision was taken speedily after new evidence showed the new strain was responsible for spiralling COVID-19 cases.
The variant, which officials say is up to 70% more transmissible than the original, also prompted concerns about a wider spread. Several European countries, including Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands, said they were taking measures to prevent people arriving from Britain, including bans on flights and trains.
On Saturday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson abruptly tore up plans to allow three households to mix indoors for five days over the festive period, and imposed new Tier 4 level curbs - similar to a national lockdown in March - on London and southeast England.
Hancock suggested the tougher measures - which require about a third of the population of England to stay at home except for essential reasons such as work - might remain in place until vaccinations become more widely available.
“We’ve got a long way to go to sort this,” Hancock told Sky News.
“Essentially we’ve got to get that vaccine rolled out to keep people safe. Given how much faster this new variant spreads, it’s going to be very difficult to keep it under control until we have the vaccine rolled out.”
Britain began inoculating people using the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech earlier this month.
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