Watch again: Boris Johnson hosts press conference as pressure mounts over Indian Covid variant

Boris Johnson will give a Downing Street press conference about the Indian variant of coronavirus at 5.30pm.

It comes as the Prime Minister hinted this week that local lockdowns may be necessary in hotspots for the Indian variant of coronavirus, saying the Government is "anxious" and "ruling nothing out".

Asked about the possibility, Mr Johnson said: "There are a range of things we could do, we want to make sure we grip it. Obviously there's surge testing, there's surge tracing.

"At the moment, I can see nothing that dissuades me from thinking we will be able to go ahead on Monday and indeed on June 21, everywhere, but there may be things we have to do locally and we will not hesitate to do them if that is the advice we get."

Downing Street said later there are "no plans" to reintroduce the tier system in England, but officials would not "rule anything out" such as surge vaccinations to accompany surge testing in areas with spikes of new variants.

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