On Friday, the Health Minister of the United Kingdom has warned to reimposed of national lockdown across England to counter the coronavirus pandemic, noting rates of hospitalisation are doubling every eight days. 

‘We want to avoid a national lockdown, but we’re prepared to do it if we need to,’ Health Secretary Matt Hancock told BBC television. ‘We’re prepared to do what it takes both to protect lives and to protect livelihoods,’ he said, warning of more local measures to come after restrictions were placed on swathes of northeast England from Friday.

The UK has reported the fifth largest number of deaths from COVID-19 in the world, after the United States, Brazil, India and Mexico, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.

Hancock said, “we’ve also sadly seen that the number of people hospitalised with coronavirus is doubling about every eight days, so we do need to take action”.