Infections are doubling every nine days and an estimated 960,000 people are carrying the virus in England on any one day, according to the latest findings from Imperial College London and Ipsos Mori, which is conducting one of the country’s largest studies of the disease. The reproduction rate of the virus — a measure of how many people on average are infected by a single carrier — has risen to 1.6, compared to 1.2 when the last figures were published Oct. 9…
So far, Johnson has resisted a second national lockdown, preferring a localized tiered approach where regions with the highest infection rates face tougher social distancing rules, including a ban on household mixing and closing pubs that don’t sell meals.
“My concern is the tier system is not doing enough to bring the infection rate down,” Starmer, who has called for a temporary “circuit-breaker” lockdown, said at a televised press conference Thursday. “That’s why I say again to the prime minister, we need to go further and faster to control the virus.”
