Despite having repeatedly rejected calls for a nationwide locked down in favor of localized tiered measures, Boris Johnson today declared a Downing Street news conference that a responsible prime minister could not ignore the rising numbers of coronavirus infections.

Under the lock down, restaurants and pubs will close, but takeaways on deliveries will be allowed or non essential.

Retail will also close, but supermarkets are to stay open.

Mixing with other households inside homes or in private gardens will be banned except for child care and other forms of support.

Unlike the first lock down schools, colleges and universities will stay open while travel will be discouraged except for work.

Here's our political editor, Laura Ginsburg.

Misery.

The prime minister's own prediction of what a return toe lock down would feel like the step.

He never wanted to take the instruction again for England to close its doors.

Reality kicking in.

We've got to be humble in the face of nature, Andi.

In this country, alas, as across much of Europe, the virus is spreading even faster than the reasonable worst case scenario.

And so now is the time to take action because there is no alternative.

The plan.

Perhaps the hope is that a month will be enough in England, and even then the country's time of celebration won't be the same.

Christmas is going to be different this year, perhaps very different.

But it's my sincere hope on belief that by taking tough action now, we can allow families across the country to be together.

Thoughts about turn from the prime minister on this familiar phrase future.

We will get through this, but we must act now to contain this autumn surge.

We're not going back to the full scale lock down of March in April, but I'm afraid from Thursday the basic message is the same.

Stay at home, Protect the NHS and save lives.

The prime minister didn't want to be back at the lectern, but this is some of what confronted him in recent days, a range of projections from several groups of scientists made public tonight of the number of people who could die each day if nothing changed.

One suggested more than 4000 people.

All of the projections more serious than what had Bean the current worst case scenarios shown in black dwarfing what happened first time around, shown here in blue.

The fear shown in this separate document leaked to the BBC, which suggests that the NHS in some parts of England could be full within a fortnight.

On if things continue unchecked, the NHS will not be able to accept any more patients by Christmas week.

You were told by your own scientists many weeks ago that you would have to take national action in order to save lives.

Prime Minister, What took you so long?

This is a constant struggle and a balance that any government has to make between the lives and livelihood.

I do think it was right and rational to go for the regional approach.

The course of the of the pandemic has changed and it's also right.

The government should change on, modulate its response and in accordance.

And I make absolutely no apologies for that.

Thank you all very much.

Stay safe.

Thank you.

Until now, the prime minister had resisted the opposition's demands.

The delay now will cost the lock down will be longer.

It'll be harder on.

There's a human cost, which will be very, very riel now.

There's no denying these measures are necessary, and I'm glad that the government has finally taken decision that it should have taken weeks ago.

The prime minister can't say he wasn't warned.

The opposition, some of his own ministers and some of his own advisers were pushing for a limited lock down many weeks ago now.

But he chose instead to hold out under pressure from the Treasury and Tory backbenchers, choosing instead to try to keep the disease at bay with a patchwork effect.

Different regulations in different parts of the country on effort to try to guard the economy, too.

But that judgment now looks like it was a political accident waiting to happen.

There was always a risk this would happen again.

That doesn't make the reality less painful for the public or problematic indeed, for a prime minister who spent weeks resisting the move, who once again tonight has told England to live life behind closed doors.

Laura joins me now.

Laura's you made clear there this wasn't what the prime minister wanted, but in the end it was unavoidable.

I think Rita.

By late last night, that the feeling in Number 10 was that there was simply no moral or political alternative for them here.

But there is a lot that feels familiar about this.

It's not just that the prime minister is basically telling everyone they're gonna be living their lives basically indoors for the next month.

It's familiar to because he's left himself open toe accusations from his political rivals that has been too slow and that delay could be costly.

It's familiar as well for many people watching tonight that there will be another huge cost to the economy and, of course, all the other terrible personal cost to lock down just the impact of having our lives limited in this way.

But they're three very important ways in which this is also different to what happened in the spring.

First off, it's not UK.

Wide Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland have already been living under various forms of locked down.

Tighter restrictions on have their own timetables and their own plans for how they might exit from that.

Second of all, I think, in particular school staying open, that will make the experience of this very different again for millions of families watching tonight.

But thirdly, the government hopes that there is a way out of this at the end off a four week period, which is, they hope, a dramatic acceleration in mass testing.

Now, since the first lock down, rapid tests have been developed, they do now exist.

The challenge for the government is, of course, to scale that up rapidly in order to find a way of living our lives with this virus, potentially in four or five weeks when the government wants to lift these restrictions.

But I have to say the political environment is much more fractious, much tougher for the prime minister than when this old developed the first time around.

And it is certainly not a moment that anyone in government approaches with any enthusiasm.

The temptation, of course, for the opposition's to say we told you so.

But it's clearly a very difficult moment for Downing Street.

This Laura many thanks our political editor, Laura Kononsberg there.

So what is the data driving the government's decision to move to a national lock down?

Health correspondent Catherine DeCosta has been looking at the statistics many still exhausted.

Some still traumatized NHS staff already seen the impact of a second search.

They're better prepared than in the spring, with more peopie treatments and better understanding of the virus now.

Hospitals Air Trying to keep other Services running while seeing rising numbers of covert patients hospital leaders have been calling for a lock down for several weeks is gonna be very difficult to treat a full second covert search alongside winter when we know the NHS is at its busiest.

That's why we've seen arguing very clearly for quick, decisive, clear lockdowns.

The two questions are.

Is this coming quick enough?

And secondly, will people actually follow the rules?

This slide from the government press briefing shows the rise in hospital admissions on the left.

It shows a peak of 3000 daily admissions in April.

On the right, it shows we're currently it around 1000 admissions a day.

With the projection, they'll pass the spring peak in the next six weeks without urgent action, the latest estimates show.

Even with the tougher Tier three restrictions in parts of England, the epidemic still growing with more than 50,000 new infections a day, spreading among all ages and rising rapidly in the south, health officials warn many Mawr hospital admissions and deaths will follow.

An early circuit breaker had Bean recommended.

But government advisers acknowledge it's a difficult decision.

There's no doubt from the point of view off the spread of cov the early you go in, the better Andi.

So that is definitely the case for the spread of the disease.

But of course you know people have to take into account other things as well, and that's a matter for politicians.

The government hopes locking down now will bring the virus under control and by time to develop mass testing, new treatments and ultimately, a vaccine.

Catherine DaCosta BBC News The latest government figures show that there were 21,915 new coronavirus infections recorded in the latest 24 hour period.

They have now been more than a million cases of coronavirus in the UK The average number of new cases reported per day in the last week is 22,522 on 326 deaths were reported.

That's people who've died within 28 days of a positive covert 19 test.

It means, on average, in the past week, 259 deaths were announced every day, and it takes the total number of deaths so far across the UK to 46,555.

Well, our health it is to Hugh Pym is here with me and Hugh.

These measures that we heard today announced were very much driven by the fear of what might happen otherwise to the NHS.

Yes, Rita, once again protect the NHS is at the center of a government message justifying ah locked down.

And we had thes warnings throughout the media conference Professor Chris Witty talking about the NHS being an extraordinary trouble in December if action wasn't taken, the prime minister saying the NHS might not be there for people if nothing was done.

And doctors and nurses might have to choose between patients Patrick Vallance talking about deaths each day, reaching the same level as the peak back in April.

On, of course, a Siris of predictions we've been hearing about what about what would happen.

Toe hospitals, basically hospitals in England on these projections in the event of no action, would run out of beds on extra capacity brought on for co vid patients, even after postponing operations.

So those the warnings if no official intervention was actually announced Now, of course, they want to bring down virus case numbers through this lock down.

But that might take a couple of weeks.

Hospital admissions and deaths will lag behind that because of the two week delay or so, for the moment, someone becomes ill if they're going to get seriously ill before they actually get into hospital.

So seeing the results of this might take a little time.

So NHS hospitals will be extremely busy, particularly because winter is approaching as well.

You thank you very much, you pin there.