Much is an echo of March - but a lot is different too

By 8pm on Monday it felt inevitable.

But it doesn't mean that a national instruction to close the doors was automatic. Or indeed that new lockdowns in England and Scotland aren't still dramatic and painful.

With tightening up in Wales and Northern Ireland too, the spread of coronavirus this winter has been faster than governments' attempts to keep up with it - leaving leaders with little choice but to take more of our choices away.

There is much that's an echo of March. Work, school, life outside the home will be constrained in so many ways, with terrible and expensive side-effects for the economy.

This time, it's already spluttering - restrictions being turned on and off for months have starved so much trade of vital business.

But there's a lot that's different too. After so long, the public is less forgiving of the actions taken, and there is frustration particularly over last-minute changes for schools; fatigue too with having to live under such limits.

Vaccine 'should be entire focus'

By now, Boris Johnson's opponents, inside and outside the Tory party, have plenty of evidence to suggest that he would rather put off difficult decisions.

But there is another profound change, that the prime minister was unsurprisingly keen to point out on live TV, where the UK, at the moment, has a leading reputation.

Vaccines exist, partly due to UK science, and are being injected into willing arms already.

The scientific triumph still needs to be turned into a logistical victory. But if around 13 million vaccines can be offered over the next six weeks, we may be on the way.

One member of the cabinet told me: "We should do absolutely nothing but this, the vaccine - it should be the entire focus of the government; every government shoulder should be put to every government wheel."

It's not just the country's health and economic fortunes riding on hitting that stretching target, but the government's reputation too.