The Prime Minister was a guest on The Andrew Marr Show earlier today
Boris Johnson has admitted that lockdown measures in the UK are ‘probably about to get tougher’.
The government has faced renewed calls to abandon plans to reopen schools amid cases of coronavirus skyrocketing.
Yesterday, there were 57,725 new cases of Covid-19 – the highest daily total since the pandemic first swept across the UK.
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The authorities believe a new strain of Covid-19 is responsible for the rise in coronavirus cases. So rapid was the rate of infection that public health bodies urged the government to scrap a planned relaxation of restrictions around Christmas.
Most of England was given a ‘stay at home’ order the Saturday before Christmas.
The government had originally planned to shun scientific advice and go ahead with plans to reopen schools, but now Prime Minister Boris Johnson has admitted that restrictions are probably going to be tightened.
The majority of England is under strict Tier 4 lockdown, with the remainder mainly falling under Tier 3.
#Marr: Should parents send primary age children back to school tomorrow in England?
Prime Minister Boris Johnson: "Yes, absolutely"https://t.co/2Q2DldF3ji pic.twitter.com/t9xBJhorco
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) January 3, 2021
Speaking to Andrew Marr on the BBC this morning, the Prime Minister said restrictions may need to be tightened even further.
“It may be that we need to do things in the next few weeks that will be tougher in many parts of the country.
“I’m fully reconciled to that. My bet [is that] the people of this country are reconciled to that.”
Marr asked the Prime Minister to describe what toughening restrictions would mean for the UK.
He said: “Until the vaccine comes on stream in a massive way, we’re fighting this virus with the same set of tools.”
Assuming those ‘tools’ refer to the tightening of lockdown rules, Marr asked Johnson whether a Tier 5 would come into force.
Johnson said: “You’ve spoken about Tier 5, I haven’t said that, but there are obviously a range of tougher measures that we would have to consider.”
The Prime Minister said he wouldn’t be drawn into speculating on what the tougher rules would look like, however.
“I’m not going to speculate now on what they might be, but I’m sure all our viewers, or listeners, will understand
“Clearly, school closures, which we had to do in March, is one of those things. It’s not something we necessarily want to do.”
Boris seemed to accept that Tier 4 restrictions would be tightened.
He said: “What we’re doing now is using the tiering system, which is a very tough system… And, alas, probably about to get tougher, to keep things under control. But we’ll review it.”
The Prime Minister added: “And we have the prospect of vaccines coming down the track in their tens of millions.
“That, I think, is something that should keep people going in what I predicted, back on your show in October, will be a very bumpy period right now. It is bumpy and it’s going to be bumpy.”
