Currently six in 10 Londoners who have coronavirus have this new variant, the city s mayor said on Sunday morning.
On Saturday at a Covid briefing, Boris Johnson said this new variant was up to 70% more transmissible than the original variant.
Asked by ITV News Political Correspondent Paul Brand if the spread of the new variant was out of control , Matt Hancock confirmed it is and said cases are rising very, very sharply in London, the south-east of England, Essex and Hertfordshire .
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Speaking on BBC One s The Andrew Marr Show, Mr Hancock warned that there are currently just over 18,000 in NHS hospitals with coronavirus.
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Video report by ITV News Political Correspondent Paul Brand
Boris Johnson will chair a meeting of the government’s Cobra civil contingencies committee on Monday after a series of countries announced they were stopping flights from the UK.
Ireland and France have become the latest in a growing list of European countries to ban travel from the UK in an attempt to curb the spread of the new variant of Covid-19.
The Eurotunnel will close completely from 10pm on Sunday, while ferries will still be able to operate for freight to Ireland.
They join Italy, Belgium, Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands in banning visitors from the UK.
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ITV News Science Editor Tom Clarke on how the new strain of the virus has spread
Scientists are now almost certain we re now dealing with a variant of the Covid-19 virus more infectious than any seen before.
If their assumptions are correct this is a major moment in the pandemic. This is the first time that any of the thousands of variants of the virus that have cropped up around the world this year behaves in a different way - making it worthy of the title strain - and one which could now mean we re dealing with a very different disease than the Covid-19 we ve struggled with until now.So where did it come from? In the first analysis of the new strain, published today there are important clues.
The country s Christmas plans have been drastically scaled back amid surging coronavirus cases. Credit: PA
Millions of people across London, the south-east of England and Wales have entered a third lockdown as tier 4 restrictions came into force in the two nations amid surging Covid-19 cases.
While Christmas has effectively been cancelled for almost 18 million people in London, south-eastern and eastern England, with households banned from mixing indoors and outdoors with others, the rest of the country faces a much scaled-back festive period.
On Saturday, Boris Johnson and the leaders of Wales and Scotland announced that the previous three households, five days rule was being ripped up and households only able to form bubble for Christmas Day only.
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Video report by ITV News Political Correspondent Paul Brand
New Tier 4 restrictions have also been imposed on millions of people in London and the south-east of England. The tougher rules came into force at midnight on Sunday.
While Nicola Sturgeon announced a “strict travel ban” between Scotland and the rest of the UK and said all of the mainland would enter a lockdown from midnight on Boxing Day and last for three weeks.
Speaking alongside Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty and Chief Scientific Advisor Sir Patrick Vallance, Boris Johnson said the tightening of the restrictions is linked to the spread of a mutant variant of Covid-19 which scientists believe is spreading more quickly than the previous form.