PRIME Minster Boris Johnson has warned that England faces the worst yet, as he announced a new national lockdown in an address to the nation this evening (Monday, 4 January).

The prime minister says that given "alarming figures", it has become "clear that we need to do more" to bring the new fast-spreading coronavirus variant "under control" and help the vaccination roll-out in the UK.

He says we must therefore go into a national lockdown, with the government once more telling people to stay at home, except for specific reasons, including essential shopping, to work, if you cannot work from home, to exercise, to seek medical help, to escape domestic abuse.

He says the government will be advising clinical extremely people to begin shielding again.

Schools in Thurrock were already mostly closed but that is now a national position and he has told students that it is not "fair" for all exams to go ahead this summer.

The prime minister says he "completely understands the inconvenience and stress" the disruption to education will cause parents and pupils.

But he says the government has been doing "everything in our power to keep schools open" because of the importance of education to children's life chances.

"The problem is not that schools are unsafe for children," he says, adding that children are still very unlikely to be severely affected even by the new variant of Covid.

But he says schools may act as "vectors for transmission", causing the virus to spread between households.

More information will follow.