Ebene News – GB – Statement by the Prime Minister on the coronavirus (COVID-19): December 30, 2020

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Today I want to start with the good news: the approval of the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine which is a fantastic achievement for British science

And there is an important development which is helping us to speed up our vaccination program across the UK:

And so from now on, we’re going to give a first dose to as many vulnerable people as possible,

And that means we can immunize and protect many more people in the coming weeks

and all I’m saying is we’re working as hard and as fast as we can to get you the supplies, and as soon as we have the supplies, we’ll put them in people’s arms

We have to face the fact that we have two big things going on in our fight against Covid –

On the positive side, we have two valid vaccines and we are racing, like I said, to get them out

In contrast, there is a new strain of the virus that is spreading much faster and is spreading across the country

And we’ve seen a 40% increase in cases in England in the last week alone,

Almost 15% more patients in hospital – more than at the peak of the first wave

And yesterday, sadly, we recorded almost a thousand deaths across the UK, for the first time since April

This is why the Health Secretary has announced that more parts of England will be upgraded to Level 4 from tomorrow

Because today, of course, it remains that keeping children in education is a national priority

But we have to face the fact that the pace of dissemination of this new variant

now forces us to take even more stringent measures in some areas and this affects schools

Primary schools across much of England will gather again next week, as planned for the new term

I’m afraid that the start of the new mandate will be postponed to at least January 18

Children of key workers, or those considered vulnerable, will always return to primary school from next week – wherever they live in England

In secondary schools, all vulnerable children and children of critical workers will return next week across England as originally planned

But we will ask high school exam year students to learn remotely during the first week of the term

The rest of the high school students, Ie the unexamined groups will return a week later, that is from January 18 – but I want to point out that depending on the spread of the disease, it may be necessary to take additional measures in their cases also, in as I say the most affected areas

To minimize disruption in schools and fight disease, we are massively expanding our testing operation

Once again, I want to thank the teachers, students and parents who worked so hard to keep schools safe and open

We are also calling on universities to reduce the number of students returning to campus in January, prioritizing medical and other classes that require face-to-face teaching

All of these measures are ultimately aimed at saving lives and protecting the NHS

This means not meeting friends or family members indoors, unless they are in the same household or in the same supportive bubble,

and we are moving faster, and that gives me great confidence in the future in the spring

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