England was placed under tighter restrictions from Tuesday in a bid to tackle the omicron variant of Covid-19 that is causing significant concern among scientists, with increasing cases detected across the UK in recent days.
Flanked by England’s Chief Medical Officer, Chris Whitty, and the Chief Scientific Officer, Sir Patrick Vallance, the Prime Minister held an unexpected press conference on Saturday and announced a series of tighter restrictions that came into force from 4am on November 30.
The new restrictions are as follows:
- Anyone arriving in the UK will be asked to take a PCR test for Covid-19 by the second day and must self-isolate until they provide a negative test.
- All contacts of people who do test positive with the suspected variant will have to self-isolate for 10 days. The Government confirmed that this applies to children.
- The rules on face coverings are changing. They will become compulsory on public transport and in shops from next week, but not including hospitality. Teachers and pupils in Year 7 and above are now being “strongly advised” to wear masks in communal areas outside classrooms in England.
Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Angola have joined South Africa and five other neighbouring nations on England’s red list.
Mr Johnson told the press conference: “We’re not going to stop people travelling, I want to stress that, we’re not going to stop people travelling, but we will require anyone who enters the UK to take a PCR test by the end of the second day after their arrival and to self-isolate until they have a negative result.
“Second, we need to slow down the spread of this variant here in the UK, because measures at the border can only ever minimise and delay the arrival of a new variant rather than stop it altogether.
“We will require all contacts of those who test positive with a suspected case of omicron to self-isolate for 10 days regardless of your vaccination status.
“We will also go further in asking all of you to help contain the spread of this variant by tightening up the rules on face coverings in shops and on public transport.”
The Prime Minister said the “temporary and precautionary” measures would be reviewed in three weeks, just a week before Christmas.
He continued: “We need to bolster our protections against this new variant.
“We don’t yet exactly know how effective our vaccines will be against omicron but we have good reasons for believing they will provide at least some measure of protection.
“If you’re boosted, your response is likely to be stronger so it’s more vital than ever that people get their jabs and we get those boosters into arms as fast as possible.
“From today we’re going to boost the booster campaign, we’re already planning to do six million jabs in England alone over the next three weeks and now we’re looking to go further.
“The Health Secretary has asked the JCVI (Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation) to consider giving boosters to as wide a group as possible as well as reducing the gap between your second dose and your booster.”
Nicola Sturgeon also used her own keynote speech on Monday to the SNP conference to tell of “profound concern” at the new strain, and urged the public to make renewed efforts to step-up compliance with existing rules and advice.
