Key questions

-When will it end? No real sense of that, v striking no time limit was offered.
-PM put a lot of emphasis on the new variant, saying the old measures would have worked with the old strain. Not all public health experts agree... https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1346185267804332032

... Whether that's right or not, the new tiers were announced only a week or so ago. Many at the time said that further tightening was inevitable. Why the wait?
-Why were schools allowed to return for one day? PM said it's because they're so reluctant to close them...

....rightly so. Closure is a policy disaster for schools. But a great deal of mixing has taken place today for virtually zero educational benefit.
-With exams cancelled, what will replace them? Will it be a CAG process as last year?

- what's going to happen with universities?
-How are we going to accelerate the vaccine process? PM said "if things go well" we can vaccinate top four priority groups by mid-Feb. Given we know things aren't going to well for the NHS in that time, how is it to be achieved?

-SAGE advised that R prob couldn’t be reduced without school closures on December 22nd. The week before that ministers threatened local authorities with legal action if schools didn’t open. Why not heed their advice on Dec 22nd and give teachers time to plan for remote learning?

-the variant was known in late December but parts of the country were not in the toughest restrictions. Why not? It was said the variant was already seeded in those places. Wouldn’t tougher restrictions have helped restrict its spread?

- and the biggest (and most worrying question of all) what’s left in the armoury if this doesn’t work?