London (AFP)

The British government is preparing to announce next week a re-containment in England until December 1, abandoning a local approach in the face of the strong spread of the new coronavirus, several dailies reported on Saturday.

According to the Times, Prime Minister Boris Johnson will announce at a press conference Monday a re-containment from Wednesday until December 1 in England.

Non-essential businesses will close but nurseries, schools and universities will remain open, according to the daily.

Pubs and restaurants would remain closed for weeks, dealing another blow to an industry already badly affected by the pandemic, The Daily Mail reported.

According to the tabloid, the Conservative leader was urged by his scientific advisers to act to "save Christmas", a beloved period of the British.

However, government sources told The Times and The Telegraph that a final decision has yet to be made, with Boris Johnson initially planning to convene his cabinet to secure the support of his ministers.

If he opts for a reconfinement, England would thus follow France, reconfined until December 1.

Belgium also announced on Friday a more severe containment of the country, and Germany has tightened the restrictions in place to slow the pandemic.

Confined to a block on March 23 during the first wave, the United Kingdom, the country most bereaved in Europe by the pandemic (more than 46,000 dead), is reacting for the moment to the resurgence of localized contaminations.

But in its latest report released on Friday, the National Statistics Office (ONS) revealed that England alone had experienced nearly 52,000 new cases of Covid-19 per day last week, an increase of 47 % compared to the previous week.

The number of infections and hospitalizations in England has surpassed the worst-case scenario, wrote scientists from the Sage group, which advises the government, in a note written on October 14 and published on Friday.

"Nobody + wants + lockdown, myself included," Sage committee member Jeremy Farrar said on Twitter.

"But we quickly passed the worst-case scenario, we are further along in the epidemic than many had anticipated," he said, calling for "act now".

Each British province decides on its own strategy against the pandemic.

Wales' more than three million people are the first Britons to be returned to lockdown, at least until November 9.

In mid-October, Northern Ireland closed pubs and restaurants for a month and decided to extend the school holidays.

© 2020 AFP