A 10pm curfew? Better grab a few beers and head round mine then...
DRINKERS stocked up with booze after the new kicking out time of 10pm on Friday – with more than a quarter of the population about to live under lockdown.
Queues formed outside shops selling alcohol as around 17 million people face tougher restrictions, including a ban on the mixing of different households.
Households in Wigan, Stockport, Blackpool and Leeds were put into lockdown from midnight Friday, while Cardiff and Swansea come into force from 6pm today.
Restrictions were imposed in the town of Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, from 6pm yesterday.
Lockdowns will affect half of Wales’s population and include banning people from entering or leaving those areas without a reasonable excuse – and meeting anyone they do not live with indoors.
The start of the new academic year has also led to fears youngsters at university could trigger local outbreaks after a number of clustered infections.
Yesterday 1,700 students at Manchester Metropolitan University were told to self-isolate in their halls after 127 tested positive.
And with 600 students in quarantine, the University of Glasgow offered to refund a month’s rent, £50 for food and supplies, and increased food parcels after many complained they could not get supermarket slots. They will also get washing products and clean bedding.
It is estimated 3,000 students are now in isolation across campuses. Despite the new national restrictions SAGE member Professor Graham Medley warned there would be 100 coronavirus deaths a day in three or four weeks’ time without urgent action.
He told the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “In order to stop that process increasing again, we need to make sure that transmission comes down now.
“The things we do now will not stop 100 people dying a day, but they will stop that progressing much higher.”
Prof Medley added he had “never heard” the 10pm curfew for pubs discussed during SAGE meetings.