Faced with the rapid resumption of the coronavirus epidemic, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Tuesday, September 22, new restrictions, limited to England, in order to avoid a total containment. 

Accused of worsening the toll of the pandemic by delaying decreeing containment in March, the head of the conservative government warned last week that it was necessary "to be hard now". 

On Tuesday, he spoke to Parliament at midday before a television address scheduled for the evening.

In the morning, the Head of Government brought together his ministers as well as the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Prime Ministers, who agreed "to take as much as possible a unified approach".

Each nation decides on its own disease control measures. 

It will "confirm that pubs, bars and restaurants will have to close at 10 p.m. from Thursday" in England, Downing Street announced Monday evening.

"Only table service" will now be allowed, added the same source.

The idea is to reduce interactions to avoid transmission of the disease. 

"Of course people can always find each other earlier, but the new measures reduce the time that people can meet and potentially pass the virus on to each other," commented Julian Tang, professor of respiratory sciences at the University of Leicester. . 

"The more drunk you are, the less inhibited and cautious you are," noted Jennifer Cole, a biological anthropologist at Royal Holloway University.

This off time gives people "plenty of time for a quick meal or drink with friends after work, but it means they'll likely be sober enough to remember to cover their faces on the train or bus to go back home". 

These restrictions angered the hotel sector, Kate Nicholls, managing director of UK Hospitality, evoking a "new blow" for a sector already badly damaged by the health context. 

"Not up to par" 

After urging the population to return to work to help revive the economy, the government changed its position: "If it is possible for people to work from home, we encourage them to do so," the government said. Minister Michael Gove on Sky News Tuesday.  

The government has also decided to put on "pause" its plan to re-allow the public to attend sporting events from October, Michael Gove told the BBC. 

Boris Johnson has also been criticized for failing to allow children to return to school in June, for mismanaging the assessment of exams and for failing to protect residents of nursing homes. 

The Prime Minister "is not up to the job," Labor opposition leader Keir Starmer said on Tuesday during a speech in Doncaster (northern England) at his congress. party organized online this year, coronavirus requires. 

The most bereaved country in Europe with nearly 42,000 dead, the United Kingdom is currently seeing contaminations "double every seven days", warned the government's scientific adviser Patrick Vallance on Monday in a televised address. 

The heads of the medical services of the four British provinces raised Monday the level of alert linked to the virus to 4, against 3 since June, which corresponds to a level of transmission "high or increasing exponentially". 

Local restrictions have already increased in recent weeks and the government hopes to only resort to national containment as a last resort with devastating consequences for an economy already severely affected by the containment of the first wave. 

With AFP 

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