Current situarion in England The most chilling finding from this piece of research is that the November lockdown in England, hard though it was for many people, would not have stopped the variant form of the virus spreading. The same severe restrictions that saw cases of the previous version of the virus fall by a third, would see a tripling of the new variant. This is why there has been such a sudden tightening of restrictions across the country. It is unclear whether the current restrictions will be enough to control the spread of the virus. Given the fact that it has taken two lockdowns to stop the earlier version of the virus overwhelming the NHS, many scientists fear that further tightening will be necessary. Infection levels will begin to drop as enough people are vaccinated. But until then it is now more important than ever for people to follow social distancing guidelines, wear masks where ...