Boris Johnson has raised the prospect of even tougher lockdown measures, including school closures, being imposed in England in the coming weeks to stem surging Covid-19 rates.

Amid concerns over pressure on the NHS and the higher transmissibility of the new coronavirus variant, the prime minister revealed he was “fully reconciled” to potentially having to “do things in the next few weeks that will be tougher”.

He also acknowledged that the coronavirus curbs were “probably about to get tougher”.

Nearly eight in 10 people in England are already under “stay at home” tier 4 measures, which include the closure of non-essential shops and strict one-to-one outdoor meeting limits between households, but Johnson suggested stricter curbs could be introduced.

Asked whether it may be necessary to introduce tougher “tier 5” restrictions in the near future, Johnson told the BBC’s The Andrew Marr show on Sunday: “It may be that we need to do things in the next few weeks that will be tougher in … many parts of the country … I’m fully reconciled to that. My bet [is that] the people of this country are reconciled to that.”

Johnson sets target of tens of millions of vaccinations in next three months

Johnson says that health secretary Matt Hancock is taking steps to get rid of widely-criticised forms which have to be filled out by retired doctors before they can help with the vaccination effort. He describes the forms as “absurd” and “pointless bureaucracy”.

He says he wishes he could elaborate on how the government will reach 2m vaccinations a week but that he is unable to do so yet. He adds: “We do hope that we’ll be able to do tens of millions in the course of the next three months.”