LONDON: The highest number of people tested positive for COVID-19 in England as millions spend Christmas Day away from friends and family as a result of a persistent spike in coronavirus infections on Friday.
Figures from the National Health Service (NHS) Test and Track network show that between 17 December and 16, 173,875 people had a good result, the highest weekly number of positive cases and a 58 per cent increase on the week before.
Separately, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), advanced cases of coronavirus are on the rise in parts of the UK, with around one in 60 people now testing positive in Wales and one in Wales. in 85 in England.
Experts believe that new mutations of the deadly virus are driving up cases across the country because they are more contagious.
TO WHOM More than 6 UK citizens will receive the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine
As a result most of the UK was put in some form of tight locking measures, with London and surrounding areas at Stage 4 of the highest alert with near-complete closure.
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson has warned that stricter restrictions may be needed to keep the mutant coronavirus strain “running out of control” in the New Year.
“We believe we need to get through this difficult time now with, as I have said many times, very difficult restrictions, with tight tensions,” he said at a press conference on Downing Street on Thursday to UK post-Brexit trade deal with European Union (EU).
“As I regret that, I think it is necessary for us to drive this virus now to stop it spiraling out of control in January.
“We need to buy ourselves some time to get the vaccine into as many arms of the elderly and vulnerable as we can,” he said.
The UK PM acknowledged that removing last-minute “Christmas bubble” rules was “very difficult” for Britons, but stressed that it would be “still difficult” as the new variant spread at an alarming rate.
On a more optimistic note, it marked a return to regularity by next Spring through the rollout of vaccines, as Department of Health and Social Care figures released this week showed that 616,933 people were on the first dose of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine for protection against COVID-19.
Queen Elizabeth II, the 94-year-old British monarch, is among the millions who spent Christmas Day as well as the rest of her family with the exception of her 99-year-old husband Prince Philip.
In her usual Christmas Day address, she reflects on the cruelty of the pandemic as the royal couple spend Christmas at Windsor Castle in south-east Berkshire, England. under the harshest Tier 4 constraints.
This is thought to be the first time they have not spent Christmas at their Sandringham estate in the east of England since the mid-1980s.
Other members of the royal family are at their homes, including Prince Charles and his wife Camilla – Duchess of Cornwall, in Gloucestershire and Prince William and his family in Norfolk.
“This Christmas our thoughts are with those of you who are spending today alone, those of you mourning the loss of a loved one, and those of you on the front line who are still gathering. the energy to take charge of your own life to look after the rest of us, “William and Kate, Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, posted on their official Twitter account.
And Prince Charles said on social media: “This is a better new year.”