In a televised address from Downing Street, the prime minister said he believed this was a pivotal moment in the fight against the pandemic on that the weeks ahead would be the hardest yet.

England has now joined Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in implementing tough une restrictions.

Faced with a surging number off new cases, Mr Johnson said that people living in England should stay at home on could only leave for exceptional reasons.

Those include shopping for essential items on going toe work where people can't work from home, like in the previous lockdowns.

Outdoor exercise is allowed.

Those who are extremely clinically vulnerable are being asked to shield again, and all schools in England will be closed to most pupils with online learning until after the February half term at the earliest.

On most GCSE and a level exams are not likely to go ahead in England this year.

But on this day of unrelenting gloom, there is nonetheless a significant cause for hope because the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine has started its roller today, following Pfizer last month with the plan to vaccinate at least 10 million people by mid February.

More on the vaccine in a moment.

But first, our political editor, Laura Ginsburg, on the day's events.

Since the pandemic began last year, the whole United Kingdom has Bean engaged in a great national effort to fight co bid on effort that isn't over, not even close.

A Downing Street points the finger of blame at the new variants spreading fast.

As I speak to you tonight, our hospitals are under more pressure from co vid than at any time since the start of the pandemic.

With most of the country already under extreme measures, it's clear that we need to doom.

Or that means the government is once again instructing you to stay at home.

That includes Children who, he said, should go to school.

Just this morning, our kitchen tables or shared sofas become offices and classrooms again.

Primary schools, secondary schools and colleges across England must move to remote permit pra vision from tomorrow, except for vulnerable Children and the Children of key workers, things might feel agonizingly familiar, but there is one big difference.

We're now rolling out the biggest vaccination program in our history by the middle of February.

If things go well on with a fair wind in our sails, we expect to have offered the first vaccine goes toe everyone in the four top priority groups nearly 14 million offers planned to the most vulnerable on the most elderly.

The doors could be unlocked in about six weeks.

But there's a list of big ifs if the rollout of the vaccine program continues to be successful, If deaths start to fool Aziz, the vaccine takes effect.

And critically, If everyone plays their part by following the rules, then I hope weaken steadily, move out of lock down, reopening schools after the February half term and starting cautiously to move regions down the tears.

I want to say to everyone right across the UK that I know how tough this is, but now more than ever, we must pull together.

The weeks ahead will be the hardest yet, but I really do believe that we're entering the last phase of the struggle because with every jab that goes into our arms, were tilting the odds against co vid on in favor of the British people.

So with the force of the law, most of life will retreat again.

Behind closed doors, chairs on tables, empty streets, silent dinner holes, corridors falling quiet in every corner of the U.

K.

I know that the next few weeks will be incredibly difficult.

I'm sorry to ask for further sacrifices after nine long months of thumb.

But these sacrifices are necessary is the decisions that politicians never wanted to have to take again, but choices they've made because beds, wards and hospitals are filling in a way that could threaten all kinds of care.

We cannot keep going in this direction or our national health service will fall over.

It will not be able to cope with what is going on on.

I'm quite sure our community does not want us to be in that situation.

Compared, measures for England will come into law in the early hours of Wednesday.

MPs will have a vote after that, but there's unlikely to be much resistance.

Thes measures are necessary, sadly, and therefore we support the package of measures that the prime minister has just outlined, and I think whatever our criticisms and challenges of the government.

We've all got to pull together now to make this work way.

You're moving everybody.

How are you?

This'll time the hope a needle in millions of arms provides the way out of all of this.

But the lock down we'll live through first is far from being a quick sting.

Flora Ginsburg, BBC News Westminster Well, as I mentioned a short while ago, all schools in England will close to most pupils from tomorrow until the February half term.

At the earliest and summer exams, GCSE A levels will mostly be canceled.

Our education editor, Brahman Jeffries, has more details.

Some schools did not reopen today.

Staff too worried about the new variant of co vid tonight, the prime minister accepting the virus spreads in schools and I want to stress that the problem is not that schools are unsafe for Children.

Children are still very unlikely to be severely affected by even the new variant of cove It.

The problem is that schools may nonetheless actors vectors for transmission, causing the virus to spread between households for secondary schools and teenagers.

Another massive U turn, G C S e s and day levels will be canceled.

Emily due to sit seven g c s E s on her mom.

Nikola were stunned.

I was just really shocked and really upset.

I've done so much work.

The GCC is being like my whole entire goal for two years.

I don't know how the teachers air going.

Thio don't know what evidence they've got now, Onda what the plan is, there's nothing, You know there was a statement and then nothing else.

So we feel like the rugs being pulled out from under us a little bit now for Children just reunited with friends now Mawr Remote learning at Home Education Union say it's the right decision made late.

We've thrown together thousands and thousands of families today for a day and exposed them to that risk of infection.

Whether that was necessary or not, it is now called into question.

What the government's really got to do is work with profession.

We can see things happening on the ground before it comes through.

In data sets things Primary school in Warrington Waas open today they are ready to stream lessons online but say that's a challenge for many families.

Children found it very difficult to access the live streaming lessons that we offer online are online.

Offer is a very strong and robust offer, but it doesn't mean that all our Children will be able to access it because they don't have enough devices or they don't have a the Internet capacity.

A primary teacher, Owen Is it home recovering from co vid a pupil tested positive at the end of last term.

By the new year, Owen was in hospital, he says the prime minister had to act.

I was pretty scared at some point, and especially when I looked around the ward, I was in this a Cube award for Oh, I think we've got to get a split on it.

And as quickly and as security as we can before start, really opening schools and things back began properly and fully.

Everything has changed for them this year.

Now it's changing again FROM and Jeffries BBC News.

So let's go live to Westminster and talk to our political editor, Laura Kingsburg.

Laura.

Let's put today's events into the context of action now being taken in all four nations of the UK That's right, you in action that politicians in every corners of the UK wanted to avoid at all costs.

There's no question about that.

This is something that politicians were very, very reluctant to do, but very strong statements publicly.

And I understand a pretty strong push privately from all of the chief medical officers across the country, basically left politicians feeling that they had no choice, really.

But to take more of our choices away from all of us on to once again say that the country has to stay at home, You can see from the numbers and statistics that we've been hearing about today how this new strain of coronavirus hasn't just gone up gradually in a graph.

It's not just even gone up in a a strong curve, it's almost going up in a straight line, defying the kind of expectation that anybody might have had of it on the knock on effect of that on the health service is there for all to see.

So the fact is that politicians have come to this place reluctantly, but they have felt that they have had no option but to take this now for Boris Johnson in particular is critics.

This will see AZM or evidence of him only wanting to make decisions at the last minute, always being caught behind the curve rather than being out in front of the pandemic.

I think even his supporters would acknowledge that he is more comfortable being the deliver of good news rather than wanting to confront things that are really bad and difficult to hear in public.

But just remember, though, while Cove it is absolutely at the forefront of politicians minds right now the impacts that come along with another locked down like this pressure on the economy, the impact on kids being out of school And, of course, pressure on other kinds of health beyond the pandemic are very, very serious to thes.

Decisions are not ones that have been easy to take for any of our leaders.

Laura.

Many, thanks again, Laura Ginsburg there with the latest forested Westminster.