GOINN’ NOWHERE
Boris Johnson set to impose compulsory hotel quarantines for UK arrivals in bid to tackle new Covid strain
David Wooding
Updated: 24 Jan 2021, 0:59
BORIS Johnson is set to impose compulsory hotel quarantines for those arriving in Britain.
The PM is also expected to tighten border controls amid mounting concerns over the spread of Covid variants.
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NHS staff wait with key workers to get their Covid jabs in GlasgowCredit: Getty Images - Getty
A tough package of restrictions is being drawn up after top scientists demanded fierce action to halt the march of the mutants.
Ministers will meet tomorrow to thrash out an action plan to keep out deadly new strains discovered in South Africa and Brazil.
18 Jan 2021
A senior minister has confirmed that lockdown restrictions will go on at least until March, when he “hopes” that they will start to be lifted and replaced by the tiered system again.
England went into its third lockdown on January 4th and while initially, Prime Minister Boris Johnson would not give a firm deadline suggesting mid-February “if things go well” the emergency legislation passed on the House of Commons days later made the measures legally enforceable until March 31st. Though Mr Johnson claimed that he did not believe restrictions would be needed for that long, the UK was effectively put in a state of shutdown for up to three months.
15 Jan 2021
Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jonathan Van-Tam has predicted people may “choose” to mask up forever, as well as regular rounds of vaccination, as the coronavirus “is likely to be with us probably for the foreseeable future”.
“The pandemic has changed a lot of things,” the technocrat said in response to a question put to him by
The Sun newspaper.
“We all carry hand sanitiser around now, we all expect in most of the places we go into that hand sanitiser is provided at the door,” he said by way of example.
“I think there are going to be people who make a personal decision to say, you know what, when I’m in a crowded place in the winter I’m going to put a face covering on. When I’m on a tube [subway train] I am going to put a face covering on,” he added.
The British government said Thursday that two arthritis drugs, including one developed in Japan, are effective in treating patients with COVID-19. In clini