The new tier system

Today, the Health Secretary set out tier allocations across England that each area will enter following the end of nationwide restrictions and the return of a localised tier system - ensuring we keep the virus under control to save lives and protect the NHS. 

  • Thanks to the hard work and sacrifice made by people up and down the country, we are now in a position where we can move out of national lockdown and into more targeted local, tiered restrictions.
     
  • Today Matt Hancock announced which areas will be placed into which tier. In reintroducing the localised approach, we are also making a number of changes to the previous system:

    • The 10pm closing time for hospitality has been modified to last orders at 10pm and closing time at 11pm. This allows customers to depart in a staggered way and provides greater flexibility.
       
    • Across all tiers, non-essential retail will be able to remain open and operate in a Covid-Secure way.
       
    • Gyms will be allowed to remain open.
       
    • Spectator sport can resume with capacity limits and social distancing, providing more consistency with indoor performances in theatres and concert halls.
  • Cumbria will be in Tier 2 as will most of North Yorkshire and an area around Cheshire and the Wirral. Much of Lancashire and the North East is in Tier three.
  • Nobody wants to throw away the gains of the difficult past few week. Therefore, as the Prime Minister made clear, they will be tougher than in October. We will continue to support those areas facing tier 3 restriction areas with mass community testing, to help those areas move out of the highest tier and provide extra funding to support them as they live with these restrictions. 
  • The government has committed to keeping these measures under review, with the first review taking place before Christmas. This review will allow for the possibility of areas which continue to make progress in slowing the spread of the disease to be moved down a tier in advance of Christmas.
  • Only by keeping the virus under control through these local measures will we be able to see friends and family over Christmas in a relatively safe way while managing the threat the virus still poses. As mass testing and vaccines are rolled out through winter and into the spring, the need for even localised restrictions will gradually reduce – and life can once again return closer to normality.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more