Morning and welcome to the UK liveblog. I’m Aamna Mohdin, I’ll be helming the liveblog until Andrew joins us later this morning.
Leicester is the first area to undergo a local lockdown, with schools shutting for most children and re-opened shops forced to close again. Health secretory Matt Hancock announced restrictions will be strengthened and continued for two weeks in a bid to combat a surge in Covid-19 cases.
Non-essential stores will close from Tuesday with schools shut to all but a small group of children from Thursday in a series of measures intended to quell coronavirus infections – which swelled by nearly 950 in a fortnight according to Leicester City council.
It means the city of more than 300,000 people will have to wait while the rest of England enjoys new freedoms, including the reopening of pubs and restaurants from 4 July, on what has been labelled “Super Saturday”.
Non-essential shops, which were only allowed to reopen earlier this month as part of lockdown easing, will have to shut again. The new measures in Leicester will be reviewed in a fortnight, Hancock said.
Here’s an explainer on what the local lockdown will look like.
Hancock will be doing the media rounds this morning, which I’ll be keeping an eye on.
Updated