BORIS Johnson will make a televised address to the country tonight to set out tougher measures to combat the surge in coronavirus cases in England.

The Prime Minister is expected at 8pm to announce the introduction of an effective third national lockdown south of the border with a similar “stay at home” message following on from Nicola Sturgeon’s statement to a recalled Holyrood this afternoon.

A No 10 spokesman said: “The spread of the new variant of Covid-19 has led to rapidly escalating case numbers across the country.

“The Prime Minister is clear that further steps must now be taken to arrest this rise and to protect the NHS and save lives. He will set those out this evening.”

Mr Johnson, following on from the First Minister’s action, is under mounting pressure to announce immediate new coronavirus lockdown measures as he acknowledged earlier there was “no question” tougher action was needed.

On timing, the PM said only that he would act “in due course” and would “do everything that’s necessary”.

He has been warned by Labour’s Keir Starmer not to delay the announcement of new restrictions in England as cases and pressure on the NHS increased.

Responding to the announcement of Mr Johnson's statement and the recall of the UK Parliament, the Labour leader said: “I hope the Prime Minister has been listening to the clear calls for tough national restrictions.”

He added new measures were needed to “get the virus under control, protect the NHS and create the space for the vaccine to be rolled out as quickly as humanly possible”.

In Scotland, the First Minister has announced the nation will go into lockdown for the rest of January with a legal requirement to stay at home and schools closed to most pupils until February.

Setting out the measures to come into force from Tuesday, she told MSPs: “It is no exaggeration to say that I am more concerned about the situation we face now than I have been at any time since March last year.”

The UK and Scottish Governments hope the arrival of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine – which was injected into the first recipients today as part of the UKwide rollout – will change the course of the fight against coronavirus.

But Mr Johnson acknowledged this morning that there would be “tough” weeks to come as cases continue to surge.

The latest data show a 41% rise in the number of confirmed coronavirus patients in hospital in England between Christmas Day and January 3, figures which have caused alarm in Whitehall and the health service.

“If you look at the numbers, there’s no question we will have to take tougher measures and we will be announcing those in due course,” the PM said during a visit to Chase Farm Hospital in north London.

With 78% of England’s population already under the toughest current restrictions, ministers are examining how successful the Tier 4 measures – which came into force for the first time on December 20 – have been.

Jeremy Hunt, the former Health Secretary for England, called for immediate action to close schools, shut borders and ban household mixing, saying the situation was “off-the-scale worse” than previous winter crises faced by the NHS.

“In the face of exponential growth even waiting an extra day causes many avoidable deaths so these plans must now be urgently accelerated,” he said.

Senior Tory Neil O’Brien said procedures “need to toughen up at the border” in order to prevent cases being imported; a particular concern given the potential for new variants such as the one in South Africa.

The rollout of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine – which is easier to distribute than the other approved jab from Pfizer/BioNTech – could provide a route out of further lockdowns but it could be months before sufficient numbers have received their first shot.

Brian Pinker, 82, was the first person to receive the jab outside clinical trials.

UK ministers have said the NHS has the capacity to deliver two million doses a week of the Oxford vaccine but supplies are limited.

While some 530,000 doses are to be available from Monday, the Department of Health and Social Care said tens of millions more were to be delivered in the coming weeks and months once batches had been quality checked.

Mr Johnson said: “We have the capacity; the issue is to do with supply of the vaccine. It’s not so much a manufacturing issue although that’s part of it. Each batch needs to be properly approved and quality controlled.”

In London, one of the first set of areas to enter Tier 4, case rates are the highest in England.

In the seven days to December 30 the rate stood at 934.3 cases per 100,000 people, up from 844.3 the previous week, and 531.5 two weeks ago.

Hospitals in the UK capital have a record number of patients with Covid-19, with 6,358 as of 8am on January 3, more than double the number a fortnight ago and above the first wave’s peak of 5,201 on April 9.