British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday urged Britons to “pull together” as both England and Scotland entered national lockdown to stem the surge of the new CCP virus variant.
“I want to say to everyone right across the United Kingdom that I know how tough this is, I know how frustrated you are, I know that you have had more than enough of government guidance about defeating this virus,” Johnson wrote on Twitter on Tuesday morning.
“But now more than ever, we must pull together,” he urged.
He said the end is in sight as the roll-out of vaccines was “tilting the odds against COVID and in favour of the British people.”
“But for now, I am afraid, you must once again stay at home, protect the NHS [National Health Service] and save lives,” he said.
Johnson laid the blame for the failure of previous measures on the emergence of a new variant, which he said has a 50 to 70 percent faster rate of transmission.
The announcement came on the day that the roll-out of the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine started in the UK. The government has ordered 100 million doses of the vaccine—enough to potentially inoculate the whole country.
“Being back in lockdown is really hard to take for everyone, but it is necessary to slow down this new strain of the virus while we get people vaccinated. Please—for you [sic] own safety, that of your loved ones and of the whole country: Stay at Home, Protect the NHS and Save Lives,” she wrote on Twitter.
