British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is pondering a second national lockdown as an accelerating coronavirus outbreak threatens to destroy any shoots of economic recovery and send millions back into isolation, Reuters reports.

The United Kingdom already has the biggest official Covid-19 death toll in Europe — and the fifth largest in the world — while it is borrowing record amounts in an attempt to pump emergency money through the damaged economy.

But new cases are rising by at least 6,000 per day in Britain, according to week-old data, hospital admissions are doubling every eight days, and the testing system is buckling.