BRITISH Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the people of England yesterday to work from home where possible and ordered bars and restaurants to close early to tackle a fast-spreading second wave of COVID-19 with restrictions lasting probably six months.

After government scientists cautioned that deaths may soar without urgent action, Johnson stopped short of another full lockdown as he did in March but said further action could be taken if the disease was not suppressed.

“We reserve the right to deploy greater firepower, with significantly greater restrictions,” Johnson told parliament following emergency meetings with ministers and leaders of the United Kingdom’s devolved governments.

“We will only be able to avoid it if our new measures work and our behavior changes.”

He said Britain had reached a similarly perilous point as countries like Spain and France.

“We will spare no effort in developing vaccines, treatments and new forms of mass testing but unless we palpably make progress, we should assume that the restrictions I have announced will remain in place for perhaps six months.”

Just weeks after urging people to start returning to workplaces, Johnson advised office workers to stay at home if they could. He ordered all pubs, bars, restaurants and other hospitality sites to close at 10 p.m. from tomorrow with only table service allowed.

“I am sorry this will hurt many businesses just getting back on their feet,” he said.

Britain will face an exponentially growing death rate from COVID-19 within weeks unless urgent action is taken to halt a rapidly spreading second wave of the outbreak, the country’s senior medics warned Monday.

In a televised address Monday, the government’s chief scientific and medical advisers warned that the U.K. had “turned a corner” for the worse and was on course for up to 50,000 new cases of coronavirus a day by mid-October, meaning up from 6,000 now which could lead to 200 deaths a day by the following month.

The COVID-19 alert level has also moved from Level 3 to Level 4 after the data showed the number of cases was rising rapidly.

On Monday, Northern Ireland said it would extend existing restrictions in some localities on households mixing indoors across the whole of the province from yesterday, while Wales slapped curbs on four more areas. Scotland said additional restrictions were almost certain to be imposed.  

(SD-Agencies)