TIER 4 has been extended to huge swathes across the UK from Boxing Day, Matt Hancock has announced today.
Oxfordshire, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and more will be plunged into even tighter restrictions as a result of the rapidly-spreading new variant of Covid – as Mr Hancock announced ANOTHER new strain has been found in South Africa.
Bristol, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Northamptonshire will go into Tier 3 too, and Cornwall and Hereforshire will be bumped up from Tier 1 to 2.
As the new Tier changes will come in on Boxing Day, it means Christmas for millions won’t be affected.
Mr Hancock said today: “We simply cannot have the kind of Christmas that we all yearn for.”
He said Tier 3 hadn’t worked to keep the new variant under control, and more places had to be shoved into Tier 4.
The Health Sec has taken immediate action as a result of spiraling hospital admissions and cases soaring over the past week across England – but the South East and London is the hardest hit.
He also revealed grave news that a new strain of Covid has been detected in South Africa – with two cases in the UK who had recently been there.
Anyone coming back to the UK form South Africa will now have to quarantine for two weeks, effectively immediately.
Dr Susan Hopkins from Public Health England and Jenny Harries were by his side.
The decisions were made this morning at a crunch Covid Operations meeting with top ministers in Whitehall.
At the moment people in Tier 4 can’t see family and friends for Christmas – unless it’s seeing their already-formed support bubble.
And anyone outside of Tier 4 is only able to spend time with people indoors for a 24 hour period on Christmas Day.
Mr Jenrick said today that there were no current plans to put all of England into another lockdown – but stressed more places may go into Tier 4 soon.
He told Sky News today: “We have now had time to think again about whether further action is required in other parts of the country.
“That is the decision the PM will need to take in the next couple of days.
“The question is whether we should take action now to try and head it off.”
The Tier review was due to take place on December 30, but fears the mutant strain is now “everywhere” meant it was brought forward.
A government source said that “things are moving very quickly.”
Professor of Operational Research at University College London Christina Pagel told Times Radio this morning that ministers need to place the whole of England in Tier 4 today.
She warned: “Things are getting rapidly worse….We are in an incredibly dangerous situation…
“We can’t afford to wait for confirmation, because it is just rising so so rapidly… Tier 4 kind of sits in a sea of tier 2. Cases in those tier 2 areas have doubled in the last week. So it’s seriously out of control there.
“If we just wait and we let it spread to the North, where things are much more under control, then the whole country is on fire and I just feel like we have to stop it now and protect the North from the South.”
She added that waiting for Boxing Day would be “too slow and it’s too reactive.”
