Here's What A Second Lockdown Means For England
England is to go into a second national lockdown at one minute past midnight on Thursday morning, Boris Johnson has announced.
Here’s what we know:
What are the new rules?
All pubs, restaurants, hospitality venues and leisure facilities will close but nurseries, schools, colleges, universities and essential shops will stay open.
As during the shutdown March, takeaways can stay open but only for delivery services.
People should only leave their home for education, work, to shop for essential items, recreation outdoors, for medical reasons or to escape harm. When outdoors, they should only mix with people from their household or with one person from another household.
All other non-essential retail will close and there will be a ban on households mixing indoors as part of a bid to slow down the Covid-19 second wave.
Support bubbles for single-adult households are still permitted, and children who live between two different households will still be able to move between parents.
When could a second national lockdown end?
The second lockdown, as it currently stands, will end on December 2.
After that date England will revert to the tiered system which has already been in place for several weeks, with Johnson saying in the press conference that the government hopes to move to a “pragmatic” localised approach in the months to come.
Why now is a lockdown happening now?
On Saturday afternoon the UK surpassed one million confirmed Covid-19 cases.
It has become clear in recent weeks that coronavirus is now spreading faster than even the worst predictions of scientists. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) infection survey found cases have “continued to rise steeply” with an average of 51,900 new cases per day of Covid-19 in private homes between October 17 and 23.
This represents a 47% jump in cases in just one week.
Government scientists now believe deaths could reach 500 per day within weeks, with the toll already topping 300 twice in the past...