The British government has been forced to tighten COVID-19 restrictions because a new variant of the CCP virus detected in England earlier this year has gone “out of control,” UK Health Minister Matt Hancock said on Sunday. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Saturday that the new variant of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus could be 70 percent more transmissible than the old variant. To stem its spread, the government reversed plans to ease curbs on family gatherings over the holiday season and announced that London and large swathes of Southeast England would come under “Tier 4” restrictions, which are broadly equivalent to the national lockdown in England in November. “The new variant is out of control and we need to bring it under control, and this news about the new variant has been an incredibly difficult end to frankly an awful year,” Hancock told the BBC’s Andrew Marr …