Tighter lockdown amid Covid surge

LONDON: Europe’s top financial centre with 9 million people will enter a tighter Covid- 19 lockdown from midnight today as Prime Minister Boris Johnson seeks to tackle a swiftly accelerating second coronavirus wave.

The respiratory pandemic, which emerged in China last year and has killed over a million people globally, is spreading in most of the UK, whose death toll is the highest in Europe.

Anger is rising over the economic, social and health costs of the biggest curtailment of freedoms since wartime: one former government adviser warned some people would have trouble clothing their children soon.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said London, as well as the adjacent, heavily populated county of Essex, would be put on “high” alert level, up from “medium”, at one minute past midnight. London mayor Sadiq Khan said: “I must warn Londoners: We’ve got a difficult winter ahead.”

In the capital, 11 boroughs were seeing more than 100 new cases a week per 100 000 people. The worst hit areas were Richmond, Hackney, the City of London, Ealing, Redbridge and Harrow. Manchester, in the north, and one of Britain’s largest cities, had been tipped to be moved to “very high” alert from “high”.

In areas put on the high alert level, socialising outside households or support bubbles is not allowed indoors, though work can continue and schools continue to operate. The “very high” alert level forbids socialising, forces pubs and bars to close and prohibits travel outside the area.