{"id":279224,"date":"2020-12-20T04:10:19","date_gmt":"2020-12-20T09:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=279224"},"modified":"2020-12-20T04:10:19","modified_gmt":"2020-12-20T09:10:19","slug":"uk-new-coronavirus-strain-leads-to-fresh-restrictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/12\/20\/uk-new-coronavirus-strain-leads-to-fresh-restrictions\/","title":{"rendered":"UK: New coronavirus strain leads to fresh restrictions"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Across the rest of the UK, up to three households can still meet, but \u201cthis will be limited to Christmas Day only,\u201d he added. (File photo: Gary Butterfield\/Unsplash)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LONDON<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 With a surging new coronavirus strain, fresh restrictions will cancel Christmas mixing in London, the southeast and the east of England starting Sunday morning, Britain’s prime minister announced.<\/p>\n

Boris Johnson told a Covid-19 press conference that those areas will be under the newly introduced Tier 4.<\/p>\n

A new variant of the coronavirus is concentrated in Tier 4 areas, Johnson said.<\/p>\n

Johnson\u2019s remarks came only a few days after he said restricting household mixing in Christmas would be \u201cinhumane\u201d and permitted the mixing of three households on Dec. 23-27.<\/p>\n

Across the rest of the UK, up to three households can still meet, but \u201cthis will be limited to Christmas Day only,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The new Tier 4 rules necessitate that residents stay at home, apart from limited exemptions, as well as the closure of non-essential retail, indoor gyms, leisure facilities, and personal care services, and people must work from home if they can until the next review on Dec. 30.<\/p>\n

People are urged not to enter or leave Tier 4 areas, and residents of those areas must not stay overnight away from home, Johnson explained.<\/p>\n

If you live in Tier 4 areas, you can only meet one person from another household in an outdoor public space, but communal worship can continue to take place, he also said.<\/p>\n

He said their understanding of the \u201cvelocity of transmission of the new variant changed,\u201d and the government is following the scientific advice.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at the southeast, the east and London, there has been a really dramatic increase in the number of cases,\u201d said Chris Whitty, the government\u2019s Chief Medical Officer, speaking alongside Johnson.<\/p>\n

In the southeast, 43 percent of cases are now the new variant, in the east, it is 59 percent, and in London it is 62 percent, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNumbers have gone up very quickly in the last few weeks, they are much lower in other parts of the country,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Scotland\u2019s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon also said on Saturday that there will be a strict travel ban in law between Scotland and the rest of the UK throughout the festive period.<\/p>\n

She added that a previously declared five-day-long indoor mixing period will be reduced to one day on Dec. 25, Christmas Day.<\/p>\n

\u201cStanding here saying this makes me want to cry because I know how harsh it sounds … but this virus is unfair,\u201d Sturgeon said. \u201cThis new strain is transmitting so quickly that it will very soon overwhelm us.\u201d\u00a0(Anadolu)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LONDON\u00a0\u2013 With a surging new coronavirus strain, fresh restrictions will cancel Christmas mixing in London, the southeast and the east …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":279225,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-279224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-anadolu","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279224"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":279226,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279224\/revisions\/279226"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}