Speaking in the Commons this afternoon, Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced that after the bi-weekly review of areas across England, a number of regions would be moving Tiers. At 00:01 this morning London, most of Essex, and parts of Hertfordshire entered Tier 3 following announcements earlier in the week, but areas with a change announced today will not enter their new tier until 00:01GMT on Saturday.
Mr Hancock said that the winter months were always tougher on the NHS and for peoples health and that there were 18,038 people in hospital across the UK with Coronavirus. Resultantly, he argued, these measures were nesercarry to prevent and alleviate stress on the health service as cases across the South East and East of England were up 46% on the last week. With this in mind, he announced that the following areas would move up to Tier 3:
- Bedfordshire
- Buckinhamshire
- Berkshire
- Peterborough
- The whole of Hertfordshire
- Surrey, with the exception of Waverly
- Hastings
- Rother
- Portsmouth
- Gosport
- Havant
The Health Secratary said that regions that had come out of Tier 3 has seen people take responsibility upon themselves to make that happen. With that in mind he announced that the following areas would move from Tier 3 to Tier 2:
- Bristol
- North Somerset
Responding, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary Johnathan Ashworth said that the opposition accepted and understood why the Government had needed to move some regions up a tier, pointing to the rising number of cases. But he also asked Matt Hancock whether the governemnts plan to allow the mixing of households for five days over Christmas was sensible given “the virus was ragign with such ferocity at the moment”, pointing to the wave of new cases appearing the US and Canada in the wake of people gathering together for Thanksgiving.
But what does changing Tiers mean in practice for Surrey? As a brief overview, here are some of the key changes:
| Tier 3 |
| No mixing of households indoors or outdoors in hospitality settings or private gardens |
| Rule of six applies in public outdoor spaces such as parks |
| Hospitality venues such as bars, pubs, cafes and restaurants must only provide takeaway services |
| Indoor entertainment such as theatre and cinemas must close |
| Accomodation such as hotels and B+Bs must close |
| Guidance against travelling in and out of area |
| Personal care services such as hairdressers and barbers are allowed to stay open |
| Gyms and indoor leisure acticvites can remain open, but group activities should not take place |
| Places of worship can remain open, but households and bubbles must not interact |
Full details of restrictions can be found here.
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