Beautiful Virgin Islands

Sunday, Sep 21, 2025

Johnson pushes England’s Covid lockdown exit back a month amid spread of Delta variant and rising ICU rates

Johnson pushes England’s Covid lockdown exit back a month amid spread of Delta variant and rising ICU rates

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that England will not abandon all Covid-19 restrictions this month as had been planned, due to the threat of the Delta variant of the virus and rising hospital admissions.
The lifting of the final stage of England’s so-called ‘roadmap’ out of lockdown will be delayed by four weeks to July 19, Johnson told a Downing Street Press conference on Monday.

The government will review its decision not to bring England further out of lockdown in two weeks’ time.

“Even if the link between infection and hospitalisation has been weakened, it hasn’t been severed,” Johnson said, adding that the numbers of people being admitted to intensive care units were increasing.

He said the government had faced a “difficult” decision in prolonging lockdown, but ploughing ahead with further relaxations could result in “thousands more deaths.”

The country has not met all the government’s four tests for lifting the remaining public health measures, Johnson said, explaining that it was “sensible to wait just a little longer.”

“By July 19, we will aim to have double-jabbed around two-thirds of the adult population, including everyone over 50, all the vulnerable, all frontline health and care workers, and everyone over 40 who received their first dose by mid-May,” Johnson added.

The government is concerned by the more transmissible Delta variant of coronavirus, first detected in India, which Johnson said was causing cases to grow by around 64% per week in England, with infections doubling in the worst affected areas.

Despite the continuation of lockdown, Johnson said limits on the number of people who were allowed to attend wakes and weddings would end on June 21, allowing more than 30 socially distanced guests to attend.

The PM also said the government would still pilot large-scale events such as the Euro 2020 football tournament from June, but confirmed that nightclubs would not be allowed to reopen as had been planned.

On Monday, the UK reported a further 7,742 Covid-19 cases, with the virus incidence rate up 45.5% over the past week, compared to the previous seven days.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
EU Set to Bar Big Tech from New Financial Data Access Scheme
China Bans Livestreaming and AI in Religion Amid Crackdown on Shaolin Temple Scandal
Documents Reveal Mandelson Failed to Declare Epstein-Funded Flights as MP in 2003
Dubai Property Boom Shows Strain as Flippers Get Buyer’s Remorse
Harris Memoir Sparks Backlash from Democrats for Blunt Critiques in ‘107 Days’
Germany Weighs Excluding France from Key European Fighter Jet Programme
Cyberattack Disrupts Check-in and Boarding Systems at Major European Airports
Japan’s ‘Death-Tainted’ Homes Gain Appeal as Prices Soar in Tokyo
Massive Attack Withdraws from Spotify Over Daniel Ek’s €600M Defence-AI Investment
Björn Borg Breaks Silence: Memoir Reveals Addiction, Shame and Cancer Battle
When Extremism Hijacks Idealism: How the Baader-Meinhof Gang Emerged and Fell
Top AI Researchers Are Heading Back to China as U.S. Struggles to Keep Pace
JWST Data Brings TRAPPIST-1e Closer to Earth-Like Habitability
Trump Orders Third Lethal Strike on Drug-Trafficking Vessel as U.S. Expands Maritime Counter-Narcotics Operations
Trump Orders $100,000 Fee on H-1B Visas and Launches ‘Gold Card’ Immigration Pathway
Why Google Search Is Fading and AI Is Taking Its Place
UAE-US Stargate Project Poised to Make Abu Dhabi a Global AI Powerhouse
Federal Judge Dismisses Trump’s Fifteen-Billion-Dollar Suit Against New York Times, Orders Refile
France’s Looming Budget Crisis and Political Fracture Raise Fears of Becoming Europe’s “Sick Man”
Three Russian MiG-31 Jets Breach Estonian Airspace in ‘Unprecedentedly Brazen’ NATO Incident
DeepSeek Claims R1 Model Trained for only $294,000, Sparking Global Debate Over China’s AI Capabilities
SoftBank Vision Fund to Cut Nearly Twenty Percent of Staff in Bold AI Strategy Shift
Intel’s Next-Gen Manufacturing Gets a Lifeline from Nvidia’s Strategic $5B Deal
Erika Kirk Elected CEO of Turning Point USA After Husband Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
×