England expected to go under tougher three-tiered restrictions in December

LONDON -- British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to unveil his anti-coronavirus plan for winter on Monday as local media reported that England will go under a tougher three-tiered system of local COVID-19 restrictions at the end of the current national lockdown.

The government is expected to impose the three-tiered system of social curbs in England when the national lockdown ends on Dec 2, Downing Street was quoted by local media as saying.

The prime minister is set to detail his plan for winter to lawmakers on Monday as he sets out how people can see their loved ones at Christmas.

The "COVID winter plan" is expected to place more areas into the higher tiers. The strategy is to keep the virus under control to ensure further restrictions are not needed, Downing Street said.

The tiers are expected to be strengthened to safeguard the gains made during the national lockdown, the London-based Evening Standard newspaper said Sunday.

Johnson is "facing a significant challenge to his plan to replace the current lockdown in England with a stricter three-tiered system of COVID restrictions, with 70 Conservative MPs saying they would not back the new regime without first seeing a cost-benefit analysis," The Guardian newspaper said Sunday.

In a letter to the prime minister illustrating the scale of unrest among Tory ranks, MPs from the newly formed COVID Recovery Group said the British government must prove the new restrictions "will save more lives than they cost".

England is currently under a month-long national lockdown until Dec 2, the second of its kind since the coronavirus outbreak in Britain, in a bid to quell the resurgence of coronavirus.

To bring life back to normal, countries such as Britain, China, Germany, Russia and the United States are racing against time to develop coronavirus vaccines.