Boris Johnson has said he had no choice but to place England into a third national lockdown as alarming new figures suggested more than one million people had Covid-19 last week.
As fears mount over a new highly contagious strain of the virus, estimates showed one in 50 people – and one in 30 in London – were infected.
In a worrying sign of the race against time the UK faces the numbers with the virus almost rivalled the 1.3 million who have so far been vaccinated against the disease.
