UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday imposed a nationwide lockdown in England to combat a new variant of the CCP virus, with all schools being shut down until February. “I completely understand the inconvenience and distress this change will cause millions of people and parents up and down the country,” Johnson said in a televised address. “The problem isn’t that schools are unsafe for children,” he said, adding that “the problem is that schools may act as vectors of transmission, causing the virus to spread between households.” The prime minister said that schools will be closed until mid-February and the public will be required to stay home. Only essential stores will remain open until Feb. 15 at the earliest. Johnson said that students are not expected to return until at least after the middle of February. Some researchers have found that schoolchildren are not driving transmission of the virus. …