British Prime Minister Boris Johnson indicated more drastic measures in the fight against the corona crisis in a television interview. “There may be things that we have to do in the next few weeks that will be harder,” he said on the BBC’s “Andrew Marr Show”, but without being more precise: “I’m not going to speculate now what this could look like. “
Currently, the country has a multi-level control system depending on the infection situation, with large parts of the country already living under strict restrictions. The UK saw a record 57,000 new infections on Saturday. In London and the south of England in particular, hospitals are reaching their limits. The new and probably much more contagious coronavirus variant is causing the number of cases to shoot up.
Safe schools?
Schools in London will initially remain closed across the board even after the end of the Christmas holidays. The British government was forced to make this decision due to the high number of infections. In other parts of the country, primary schools are expected to reopen on Monday and secondary schools will follow in the coming weeks – sometimes accompanied by mass tests.
“I have no doubt that schools are safe and that education has priority,” Johnson said in a TV interview. Meanwhile, unions and several local authorities are warning against the reopening of schools and threatening to defy government orders.
At the beginning of the corona crisis, schools were not considered to be a pandemic driver. However, new studies come to different conclusions. At the end of December, for example, an investigation from Hamburg made headlines; Accordingly, at least 25 students and teachers in a school were very likely infected from a single infected person in September.
Great dissatisfaction with the government
According to a survey by the polling institute Focaldata, there is great dissatisfaction with the policies of the British government, as reported by the Sunday Times. According to a poll, the conservative Tories, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson as party leader, would lose 81 seats in parliament in a general election. Johnson currently has a majority of 80 seats there.
More than 22,000 British people were asked to give their opinion in December. At that time, the UK was still threatened with leaving the EU without a trade pact, and planned corona easing over the Christmas period for millions of people was canceled.