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England to go into lockdown as Britain records more than 58,000 daily COVID-19 cases

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UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announces a six-week lockdown for England as a new form of COVID-19 takes hold in the country.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced a new national lockdown for England until at least mid-February to combat a fast-spreading new strain of coronavirus.

Mr Johnson said the country was at "a critical moment", with cases rising rapidly in every part of the country.

Under the new rules, which are set to come into effect from midnight, primary and secondary schools and colleges will be closed for face-to-face learning, except for the children of key workers.

University students will not return for classes until at least mid-February.

People were told to work from home unless it was impossible to do so, and to only leave home for essential trips.

All non-essential shops and personal care services such as hairdressers will be closed, and restaurants will only be able to provide takeaway services.

The announcement came as the UK once again hit a daily high of coronavirus cases.

The new record number of cases was 58,784 on Monday, with a further 407 deaths of people within 28 days of a positive COVID-19 test, taking the death toll to more than 75,500 — the world's sixth highest — according to official government figures.

The UK's chief medical officers had warned that without further action, "there is a material risk of the National Health Service in several areas being overwhelmed over the next 21 days".

Scotland also entering lockdown

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has made the tough decision to place Scotland in lockdown until the end of January.(Reuters: Andrew Milligan)

Ahead of Mr Johnson's announcement, Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon placed the devolved nation into its toughest lockdown since last spring.

"It is no exaggeration to say that I am more concerned about the situation that we face now than I have been at any time since March," Ms Sturgeon said.

Ms Sturgeon said Scots would be legally required to stay at home for January from midnight on Monday and schools would close for all but the children of essential workers.

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She said the new variant of coronavirus circulating rapidly throughout the UK accounted for nearly half of new cases in Scotland, and was 70 per cent more transmissible.

"As a result of this new variant, [the virus] has just learned to run much faster, and has most definitely picked up pace in the past couple of weeks," Ms Sturgeon told the Scottish Parliament.

In England, there are 26,626 COVID-19 patients in hospitals, an increase of more than 30 per cent from a week ago.

That is 40 per cent above the highest level of the first wave in the spring.

Mr Johnson said people in England must stay at home again, as they were ordered to do in the first wave of the pandemic in March, this time because the new virus variant was spreading in a "frustrating and alarming" way.

"As I speak to you tonight, our hospitals are under more pressure from COVID than at any time since the start of the pandemic," he said.

Teachers relieved PM 'bowed to the inevitable'

Boris Johnson says England is at a "critical moment" in the pandemic.(Stefan Rousseau/Pool Photo via AP)

Mr Johnson's announcement marked yet another change of course for the Prime Minister, who had stuck with a regional alert system that stipulated varying restrictions for areas depending on the severity of local infections.

London and large areas of south-east England were put under the highest level of restrictions in mid-December, and more regions soon joined them.

But it soon became clear that the regional approach was not working to tamp down the spread of the virus, and critics have been clamouring for a tougher national lockdown.

And while schools in London were already closed due to high infection rates in the capital, Mr Johnson had said students in many parts of the country could return to classrooms on Monday after the Christmas holidays, to the dismay of teachers' unions.

"We are relieved the Government has finally bowed to the inevitable and agreed to move schools and colleges to remote education in response to alarming COVID infection rates," Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said.

UK rolling out vaccination program

On Monday Britain became the first country to vaccinate its population with Oxford University and AstraZeneca's COVID-19 shot.

Britain has secured the rights to 100 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which is cheaper and easier to use than some of its rivals. In particular, it doesn't require the super-cold storage needed for the Pfizer vaccine.

The new vaccine will be administered at a small number of hospitals for the first few days so authorities can watch out for any adverse reactions.

The NHS said hundreds of new vaccination sites — including local doctors’ offices — will open later this week, joining the more than 700 vaccination sites already in operation.

A "massive ramp-up operation" is now underway in the vaccination program, Mr Johnson said.

The goal was that by mid-February, everyone in the top priority groups — care home residents, those over 70 years old, all frontline health and social workers, and those deemed clinically vulnerable — would be vaccinated, he said.

The vaccination rollout has fuelled hope that life may begin returning to normal by spring.

But during a visit to see health workers receiving the Oxford vaccine, Mr Johnson warned there were still tough times ahead for the British people.

"If you look at the numbers, there's no question that we're going to have to take tougher measures," he said.

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