20m more head into Tier 4 (and it cre head into Tier 4 ould last till April)

Primary schools to stay shut in worst-hit areas ALL pubs takeaway-only (except on Isles of Scilly)

TWENTY million more Britons will be plunged into Tier Four from today amid a surge in virus cases.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock warned of ‘difficult weeks ahead’ as he set out measures that will mean more than three-quarters of England’s population living under the strictest restrictions.

The Prime Minister suggested some areas could stay in Tier Four – where non-essential shops and gyms are closed, and the public are told to stay at home – until April unless the virus is brought under control.

Meanwhile, parents and pupils faced further disruption after ministers announced plans to close primary schools in areas of England worst-hit by coronavirus.

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson also confirmed most secondary school children will have the start of term delayed by a fortnight to January 18. But pupils studying for GCSEs and A Levels will be back in class from January 11 – a week later than normal – regardless of local infection rates.

Most primaries will open as usual, but in areas with ‘very high rates’ they will be closed except to vulnerable children and those of critical workers, with the rest learning online.

A total of 44 million people, or 78 per cent of England’s population, will be in the toughest tier from today. Most of the Midlands, the North East, parts of the North West including Greater Manchester and Lancashire, and parts of the South West were among those areas escalated to the highest tier.

Rising infections saw the Isle of Wight plunged from Tier One into Tier Four in just one week. Several more areas will also move into Tier Three, including Liverpool, Shropshire, Herefordshire, North Yorkshire, Bath, Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and Wiltshire. It means all of England will be living under either Tier Three or Tier Four restrictions from today, apart from 2,000 people on the Isles of Scilly, the only area to remain in Tier One.

Twelve million people, or 22 per cent of the population, will be in Tier Three – while no area will be in Tier Two. It means all pubs and restaurants in mainland England will be barred from opening, apart from for takeaways.

Boris Johnson hailed the approval of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine yesterday as ‘good news’ but warned that people should not ‘in any way think that this is over’. Asked by ITV News how long areas would be in Tier Four, he replied: ‘I think Chris Whitty set a sort of terminus of April 5, Easter, where he thought things would be much must better.’ Questioned again, the Prime Minister said: ‘That will depend on how fast we can get the virus under control with tough tiering, with testing and with rolling out the vaccination programme.

‘I’m not going to give you a deadline, but you’ve heard what I said about April – that’s the terminus ante quem [Latin for “latest possible date”].’

The Prime Minister told a Downing Street briefing last night that the country must ‘redouble’ efforts to contain the virus. He said: ‘We have to face the fact that we’ve got two big things happening at once in our fight against Covid – one’s working for us and one’s working against us.

‘On the plus side, we have got two valid vaccines, and we’re racing to get them out – and on the bad side there is a new strain of the virus which is spreading much faster and surging across the country.’

Mr Johnson added: ‘At this critical moment, with the prospect of freedom within reach, we’ve got to redouble our efforts to contain the virus. No one

‘Cases are doubling fast’

‘Impossible situation’

regrets these measures more bitterly than I do, but we must take firm action now.’ Painting a bleak picture, Mr Hancock told MPs yesterday: ‘Sharply rising cases and the hospitalisations that follow demonstrate the need to act where the virus is spreading.’ He said a new highly transmissible variant is now spreading across most of England, adding cases are ‘doubling fast’.

Under the strictest Tier Four rules, all non-essential shops, gyms, beauty salons and hairdressers must close.

People are urged to stay at home and limited to meeting in a public outdoor place with their household, or one other person. Under Tier Three rules, non-essential shops can open, as can gyms and hairdressers, but hospitality venues must close except for deliveries and takeaways.

The areas put into Tier Four from today are Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Derbyshire, Not

tinghamshire, Birmingham, the Black Country, Warwickshire, Staffordshire, Lancashire, Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, the Tees Valley, the north East, Gloucestershire, most of Somerset, Swindon, the Isle of Wight, the new Forest, and Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole.

Placed in Tier Three are Rutland, Shropshire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire, the Liverpool City Region, north yorkshire, Bath and north East Somerset, Devon, Cornwall, most of Dorset and most of Wiltshire. Labour said ‘harder measures’ were needed to bring the virus under control. Health spokesman Jonathan ashworth said: ‘We see ambulances queuing up outside hospitals because there are no beds for their patients.’

Paul Faulkner, head of Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce, said the move to Tier Four for the West Midlands presented ‘ an impossible situation for many businesses’. The deputy chief executive of nHS Providers, Saffron Cordery, said: ‘ although news of another vaccine being approved brings much-needed hope, we must still focus on containing the virus now.’

The primary school closures, which may be reviewed after two weeks, will hit areas including London and parts of Essex, Kent, Sussex, Buckinghamshire and

Hertfordshire. University students must also delay returning to campuses to avoid spreading the new strain across the country.

‘We must always act swiftly when circumstances change’, Mr Williamson told MPs. Concern has been growing about the spread of the virus in schools following the discovery of its much more transmissible variant. Imperial College’s Professor neil Ferguson had said delaying opening schools could be ‘the only alternative to having exponentially growing numbers of hospitalisations’. Secondary heads have been up in arms over the lack of time given to arrange in-school testing for all pupils. Professor Russell Viner, of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, had warned that schools ‘should be the last places to close’.

The Republic of Ireland will return to full lockdown for a month, it was announced last night.