Breaking: Watch Live UK PM Johnson announce new draconian lockdown measures

The British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is speaking shortly to announce a third national lockdown for England where level 5 restrictions could come into play.

Watch live here

Key announcements

• The new variant is 50-70% more transmissible.
• Hospitals under more pressure than at any time since the pandemic.
• We need to do more together. 
• A national lockdown tough enough to contain the variant is needed. 
• Stay at home. 
• Can only leave home for limited reasons. 
• The country should move to alert level 5. 
• The pace of vaccination is accelerating. 
• By mid-Feb, we expect to offer the vaccine to the top priority groups, all care homes, everyone over the age of 70, front line health and social workers and anyone clinically vulnerable.
• We should remain cautious about the time table ahead.
• If roll-out of vaccine is successful and deaths start to fall as the vaccine takes effect, then hope to move steadily to move out of lockdown, schools to go back after Feb half term and move down the tiers. 
• Follow rules now, but they will come into law on Wednesday. 
• Entering the last phase of the struggle. 
• End is in sight and we know how we will get there. 

Meanwhile, the Kingdown has passed the milestone of 50,000 infections every day for a week.

The easing of restrictions at Christmas was expected to fuel the outbreak considering the new variant's speed of transmission, pressuring the NHS to the brink.

The Department of Health chiefs also posted 407 more deaths, up just 14 per cent on the figure recorded last week.

Market implications

The worst in this data is perhaps not even appeared yet, which is why a national lockdown was expected taking the pound down over 1% on the day.

It can take infected patients several weeks to fall severely ill and succumb to the illness so fatalities are yet to reach their peak and will likely continue to rise at a later stage.

The nation is already printing death tolls not seen since the darkest days of the spring.

Darker days could be ahead for the pound.

A break of the 10-day moving average could be the bull's last dance for a while:

For more on the UK economy and the future of the pound, see here: Post-Brexit and the UK economy: How will the pound fare in a covid vaccine world?