In England, stricter limits on the Covid-19 crisis are being set

Restrictions, including a ban on meeting members of different households, are needed to stop the virus from expanding exponentially, Health Minister Mats Hankoks said. The restrictions will take effect on Saturday.

The restrictions will affect nine million people in the British capital, and more than two million in the regions of the North West, the Midlands, the North and the North West.

“The spread of the disease in London is on a rapid upward curve and the number of cases is doubling every ten days,” the minister told parliament. “The seven-day average increase in cases today is 97 and growing rapidly. We need to act now to avoid the need for new measures later.”

At the same time, there is growing pressure to establish a two-week “chain-breaking” strict quarantine regime to stop the rapid spread of the virus.

Nearly 200,000 new cases of coronavirus were confirmed in the UK on Wednesday, and 137 new Covid-19-related deaths were reported.

Wednesday was the second day in a row that the number of Covid-19-related deaths exceeded 100.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson favors a three-tier system, with restrictions set regionally according to the extent of the virus’s spread.

Hankock has supported this approach and opposed calls for general restrictions, noting that levels of virus transmission vary from region to region.

The decision means that London, Essex and Elmbridge, in the south-east of England, are now in the second tier of the three-tier system.

This list of regions also includes Derbyshire, Chesterfield, Yerevan, the east central part of England, Barrow Fines, in the northwest, and York in the north.

Liverpool, in the north-west, is the only third-tier region, and there are strict restrictions on social contacts, including pubs.

It was predicted that the third tier would be extended to other regions of the North of England, including Manchester, but Hankock said there were still discussions with local leaders.