World News for Students of English

17-12-2021 15:00

Officials said that fewer people used London’s subway and buses after the government asked people to work from home last week.

The reason the government said this was the big increase in numbers of the omicron variant of COVID-19. Many businessmen traveled to London’s financial center, called the City, and companies asked them to start working from home again. Some people already were doing it, because they did not want to be ill before Christmas.

The number of people in the subway dropped by 18% last week. The number of people on the bus dropped only by 6%. More children used buses to go to school, and schools did not close because of the coronavirus.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that he would not make stricter rules. Some members of his party said that if he did, they would not support him in the future.

Difficult words: subway (a system of underground trains in a city), variant (another type of something; a virus variant can be dangerous), party (a group of people in a government who have the same opinions and ideas).

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