England in month-long lockdown from Nov 5 as UK COVID-19 cases surge past 1 million mark

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Saturday announced that England will enter a second month-long lockdown from Thursday.

"Now is the time to take action because there is no alternative," Johnson said in a virtual press conference on Saturday at Downing Street, Xinhua news agency reported.

The lockdown will start from Thursday and will remain in place for 4 weeks till December 2 to deal with the rapidly increasing coronavirus infections.

The prime minister's announcement came just hours after official figures showed that Britain's confirmed coronavirus cases surge past the one-million mark.

Addressing a briefing from 10 Downing Street, Johnson said, "there was no choice but to be humble in the face of nature" and unless "tough action is taken now, the peak of mortality in the country could be even greater than the first wave" triggering a medical and moral disaster.

"From Thursday until the start of December you must stay at home, you may only leave home for specific reasons," he said in the live broadcasted news conference.

He also confirmed an extension to the furlough scheme until December, the wage support scheme for businesses that was set to end from November 1.

The latest lockdown plans will be tabled in Parliament next week for a debate and vote by Wednesday, for them to come into effect from Thursday.

New guidelines

1. Under the new measures, which will be effective until December 2, people in England will only be allowed to leave their homes for specific reasons, such as education, work or food shopping, said Johnson.

2. Pubs, bars and restaurants will close across the country except for takeaways.

3. Non-essential shops, hairdressers and leisure and entertainment venues will also be shut.

4. Unlike the first complete lockdown in March, schools, colleges and universities will be allowed to stay open.

5. Those who cannot work from home, such as construction or manufacturing workers, will be encouraged to continue going to their workplaces.

6. Meanwhile, different households will be banned from mixing, although support bubbles and childcare bubbles will remain.

7. Gyms will be shut but people can continue to exercise outdoors, at most with one person from another household.

Ease in restrictions after Dec 2

After December 2, the restrictions would be eased and regions would go back to the tiered system, the prime minister said.

"Christmas is going to be different this year, perhaps very different, but it's my sincere hope and belief that by taking tough action now we can allow families across the country to be together," Johnson said.

Wales is currently in a firebreak lockdown which is due to be in place until November 9 and Scotland's stringent four-tier system, with Tier 4 akin to a complete shutdown, is set to come into force from Monday.

Northern Ireland, meanwhile, has been under complete lockdown since the middle of October, scheduled for a month.

The British government has previously pursued a localized approach to tackling the COVID-19 pandemic with a three-tier alert system according to local infection rates.

Earlier Saturday, official figures showed that another 21,915 people in Britain have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 1,011,660.

The coronavirus-related deaths in Britain rose by 326 to 46,555, the data showed.

Infection rates are currently soaring across much of Europe, prompting new forms of lockdown across Germany, France and Belgium.

To bring life back to normal, countries, such as Britain, China, Russia and the United States, are racing against time to develop coronavirus vaccines.

(With agency inputs)