London on ‘high alert’ from Saturday as infections surge
London will be on ‘high alert’ from Saturday - the second of the three-tier system introduced by the UK government earlier this week - as new Covid-19 cases surged across various boroughs of the British capital.
“Things will get worse before they get better,” UK health secretary Matt Hancock said in the House of Commons, announcing new curbs in Essex, York and other areas. It means half of England’s population is now under local lockdowns.
MPs and local leaders from Manchester were in talks with Downing Street over placing the Greater Manchester area in the highest Tier 3 level, which would mean closing pubs, restaurants and other venues, and other restrictions. Liverpool and some areas of Leicester are already under toughest curbs in Tier 3.
Hancock said the pandemic has forced “some of the most difficult choices any government has to make in peacetime”.
“We make these decisions
with a heavy heart with the sole aim to steering our nation through troubled waters. Things will get worse before they get better, but I know that there are brighter skies and calmer seas ahead.”
As of Wednesday night, there were 19,724 new cases and 137 deaths across the UK in hospitals
and care homes. In London, there were 1,722 new cases and 12 deaths.
There was alarm in Germany as well as the country reported more than 6,600 new cases, its highest recorded daily total since the pandemic began. On Thursday, 6,638 infections were reported over the past 24 hours.
That is about 1,500 higher than a day earlier, and exceeds the previous high of nearly 6,300 seen in late March.
Germany has reported more than 341,000 cases, including 9,710 deaths. On Thursday, 33 new deaths were reported.