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A SECOND LOCKDOWN has been announced in England with all non-essential activity to cease from Thursday.
Pubs, restaurants and non-essential shops will be required to shut until 2 December under tough new measures revealed by the government today.
There will also be a nationwide ban on household visits. Exercise is allowed on a one-to-one basis with one person from one other household.
As in Ireland, schools and third-level institutes will remain open. Construction work, manufacturing and the courts service will also continue.
People will be asked to stay at home except for essential work, education and food shopping.
Hairdressers, leisure centres and entertainment venues will also close next week.
The new restrictions were announced by Prime Minster Boris Johnson at Downing Street this evening in an effort to curb the second wave of Covid-19 in the country.
“Now is the time to take action because there is no alternative,” Johnson said. “We have got to be humbled in the face of nature.”
Johnson also said that there was to be no mixing of households, although support bubbles for single-adult households are permitted.
Apologising to businesses, Johnson also said that the government will extend furlough payments at 80% for the duration of the new national lockdown measures in England.
Under the new restrictions, elite sport will continue – but there will be a ban on amateur sport.
The press conference came after new data showed the extent of cases across England. The Office for National Statistics estimated that 568,100 people in households were infected with coronavirus in the week ending 23 October.
And, today, the UK also surpassed one million lab-confirmed cases of Covid-19.
Figures released today showed another 21,915 lab-confirmed cases were reported as of 9am, meaning the total now stands at 1,011,660. However, the exact number of infections in the UK is thought to be far higher due to a lack of widespread testing during the start of the pandemic.
The UK has also recorded 46,555 deaths related to Covid-19.
“No responsible prime minister can ignore the message of those figures,” Johnson said this evening.
The Prime Minister and his team had been insisting right up until yesterday that their system of three tiers was the best approach to tackling the second wave while avoiding the economic damage of a full circuit-break. He said a second lockdown would be “disastrous” for the economy.
However, members of the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) backed the introduction of more stringent measures.
Professor Sir Jeremy Farrar said the consequences of sticking with the current “insufficient” restrictions would be “much worse” than going for a second lockdown.
The director of the Wellcome Trust said: “The sooner we act, the sooner we can start to recover. It will be a very difficult few weeks now and no one can underestimate the toll that will take on people.
Sage member Professor Calum Semple told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “For the naysayers that don’t believe in a second wave, there is a second wave.
“And, unlike the first wave, where we had a national lockdown which protected huge swathes of society, this outbreak is now running riot across all age groups.”
Professor John Edmunds said the only way to have a “relatively safe” Christmas is to take “stringent” action now to bring the incidence of the virus “right down”.
It comes after a senior Government scientific adviser said it is “definitely too late to think that the two-week circuit-breaker on its own will sort this out”.
“It would bring it down a bit but it wouldn’t be enough to bring (the R value) right down. A two-week circuit-breaker would have an effect but now almost certainly it would need to go on for longer to have a significant effect.”
Northern Ireland
This evening, Northern Ireland First Minister Arlene Foster confirmed that there will be no changes to restrictions in the North, with schools set to re-open on Monday.
Foster also said that restrictions will end, as planned, on 13 November.
“We must adapt to coexist with the virus. That means increasing hospital & testing capacity,” Foster tweeted.
Earlier, 649 new cases of Covid-19 were confirmed in Northern Ireland.
With reporting by PA
Hope the first thing they put in Is a new name
They really need to build a new town or city way outside Dublin. Make some major incentives for businesses and eventually displace thousands of prowl and homes outside the existing cities.
people*
@iohanx: they have three of them.
@Ronan Sexton: then make them cop on
@TonyF: cause Dublin has more people in it….
@iohanx: Portlaoise and Athlone are prime locations for major development and increase in size. Both have good transport infrastructure to most major cities in country. Don’t know why government has never invested heavily in either of these two towns.
@your bustin: at least it’s Irish, remember all those Acorn downs etc built during the “tiger years”
@Ronan Sexton: No, they need to start from scratch similar to a Canberra or Washington DC (but not a requirement for a capital city). A place with no baggage and a new start for tens of thousands. It will eventually suck people in from all over the country freeing up housing in the other populous areas. Build it and they will come as they say.
@Nathan Mawhinney: Dublin took and I repeat “took” around € 400 million strategic EU funding that was given to the rest of the country.
There was proposed to bring in an integrated ticketing service for Dublin allowing Dubs to jump from The Dart to the bus and by the time it came about they could also use The Luas with one ticket. At the time it was proposed The Minister for Transport was Mary O’ Rourke and the cost was supposed to be € 25 million or it could have been punts. By the time The Leap was introduced no doubt the cost has gone up by millions. In the meantime if one of us living outside of Dublin who want to visit we’ll say Saint Vincent’s Hospital you have to go to for instance Galway station buy a ticket to Dublin and then make your way to Connelly or whatever and buy a new ticket for that and buy another ticket to get to Sydney Parade. I am glad that Dublin is more attractive to hoards I would hate rest of the country.
@your bustin: why not a bad place to live as I have for the past almost 40 years. Would Developers Envelope be ok or wink and a nod..
Scandalously low density for such a prime site on a major railway line into town. Could fit 40,000 homes here, not 8,000. Build high density apartment blocks and reduce the number of houses and parks. Sick of this Irish obsession with acres of parks in the middle of the city, go out into the countryside if you want to play on grass. We cannot build a well functioning city if we all think we’re entitled to a front and back garden, as well as a park on all sides. Need to grow up.
@Fred Jensen: your vision Fred of no parks sounds like a great place to bring up children
Fred, a big issue is grid locked roads in the area and every home having two cars…the decision to keep the house density low might be wise because of this.
And don’t mention trains…they are too expensive and everyone doesn’t work in the city center which is just about the only major work place they deliver workers near.
@John Power:
Didn’t say no parks, just fewer. Please tell us how they manage to bring up kids in New York, London and Hong Kong.
@Fred Jensen: Is the Hong Kong blueprint the type of environment you want for future generations ?
@Fred Jensen: Grass-hole , have kids you muppet then tell them you have chosen to live in an apartment to alleviate density issues within the planning law . Muppet
@Fred Jensen: The difference between Hong Kong/ New York and Clonburris is the former have some of the best transport networks in the world, where Clon B has nothing, no light rail, no proper Bus service and wait for it, no road system to move 15 to 20000 residents. You must have proper planning before plopping 200000 people in the middle of the Suburbs or else you will have a social time bomb in 20 years time. I say that as a resident and parent living in the locality..
@John Power: that is what they did in Ballymun
@Fred Jensen:
Shut up Fred, you have a problem for every solution.
@Fred Jensen: this is why ballymun didn’t work….
Too many people with no amenities… we’ve learned our lesson I think.
@Fred Jensen: In the app there is a great feature “mute Fred Jensen”. Problem solved nicely!
@Fred Jensen: Yeah make it like China with no pure air to breath.
I’m sure it’ll rival the other great mass development in Dublin: Adamstown. Think of all the services and finished houses and roads they got!
@The Throwaway: it’s right beside Adamstown!!! About 200 metres from the western edge of Clonburris to the eastern edge of Adamstown. God help us all who live in the area. It’s like being a prisoner in your own home at peak times. And it will only get worse because the Council won’t insist on public transport providers providing a minimum level of service. 400 metres from a bus stop is no use if there are no or few buses!
@Kevin Farrell: Is that accurate Kevin?
Adamstown 2.0
@Tommy Roche: what happened to Adamstown? Some of it was built surely. But let me guess stopped half way thru.
The urban sprawl in Dublin needs to stop. We really need to start building up closer to to the city center down along the dock lands.
Before the preserve every pile of rubble brigade chim in. Dublin city centre dose have many beautiful buildings but there is also a many many ugly and derelict buildings that need to be knocked.
@Thomas Maher: I don’t think it’s a decision that particular developer can make.
@Thomas Maher: I walked thru Dublin city centre last night and while there are occasional examples of good design most of the modern buildings in Dublin are nothing more than unimaginative box shaped structures that contribute nothing to a city with so much potential
To all the professional moaners and complainers here, there is a public consultation process to which I’d like to draw your attention, before you run out of ammo here on the Journal..
@psychiatrist: but I want to moan and complain here! Too lazy to go to the consultation.
Step in the right Direction. .
@The Viking: 8000 houses announced. All I read is complaints.” Oh you cant name it this” .” Surely they could build more than 8000 on that land” By the way. The builder never named it. That patch of land has gone by that name for generations.. As i said. A step in the right direction.
They really should push for Adamstown to be finished first.
Couldn’t pay me to move there!
@Paul: where do you live?
@Paul: not since that ridiculous bill was defeated. How it works is you pay the developer to live there.
@DarkHorse: my Rented Dublin property is near 3Arena
@Matt Connolly: well those on the housing list will have it paid for then!
right beside 2 halting sites, No thanks
Looks like a disaster waiting to happen.
A ghetto in the making.
Should ban the parents driving the kids to school seeing as they are so close.
Let’s hope they build some schools to go with the houses. Usually an afterthought.
@Sean @114: did you even read the arrticle?
@Jim: damn contact lenses. They with their ‘post primary’ schools. Whatever happened to ‘secondary’? Nice to see some foresight for a change.
Give the kids plenty of football pitches to play on.
Wonder will sdcc stick to the plans or will they give in to the demands of developers and change at will. Example Adamstown with little or no amenities. Sold an expensive dream; given something completely different.
Still no plan for a subway system or an integrated affordable transport system then?….. or a directly elected mayor with responsibility for representing the wishes of Dubliners?…. but great a new suburb with all the traffic and more congestion
This SDZ is right beside the Adamstown SDZ – about 200 metres from the western edge of Clonburris to the eastern edge of Adamstown! God help us all who live in the area. It’s like being a prisoner in your own home at peak times. And it will only get worse because the Council won’t insist on public transport providers providing a minimum level of service. 400 metres from a bus stop is no use if there are no or few buses! Bus lanes are no use if there are no buses. The Kishoge train station was built years ago at a cost of millions and remains closed to this day.
Paul gogarty .. :)
The answer is not extending Dublin’s sunurbian sprawl but, instead, to limit it by decentralising more Government offices & service delivery centres thereby decluttering
the CBD and accommodating CBD workers.
This is a load of arse
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