UK lockdown news - live: Boris Johnson announces four-week national shutdown from Thursday

(Lindsey Parnaby/AFP via Getty Images)

Boris Johnson has announced a new four week nationwide lockdown at a press conference from Downing Street with businesses set to be shuttered and household mixing banned from Thursday.

The volte-face reportedly comes after ministers were shown modelling forecasting some 4,000 daily deaths per day, with chilling documents from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies also warning the UK death toll could surpass the government’s previous “reasonable worst-case scenario” of 85,000

A separate paper circulating in government says the NHS would be unable to accept any more patients by Christmas – even if the Nightingale hospitals are used and non-urgent procedures cancelled – warning that “the window to act is now for the majority of the country”.

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