When is the earliest we will be able to come out of Tier 4?

REVIEWS of local tier restrictions by the Government are scheduled to take place every two weeks.

So the soonest that the tier level in Derby and the rest of the county could be lowered officially is Wednesday, January 13.

But as previously shown, the Government is capable of stepping in and altering things ahead of schedule, as they did when they plunged large parts of London and the South East into Tier 4 on Boxing Day - ahead of a December 30 review.

If the current situation lasts that long with growing rates of infection across the country, the review on January 13 will determine whether

Derby and Derbyshire will move down a tier, remain the same or move up a tier.

Areas placed under Tier 4 are those with rapidly-rising case numbers. Restrictions are similar to national lockdown rules, with citizens urged to stay at home apart from for essential reasons.

The change means all non-essential shops, gyms, hairdressers and venues like cinemas and bowling alleys will be forced to close.

Currently, Tier 4 is the highest level of restriction but the Government has the ability to toughen the restrictions within that tier still further - or to introduce a possible Tier 5 restriction for those areas which are deemed to need it. A Government source has hinted at a possibility of a Tier 5, urged on by scientific advisers to the Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

But what that will consist of does not make it a complete national lockdown is difficult to predict at this moment.

It seems that whatever happens, it is unlikely that many places will see their tier restrictions reduced and in reality they are more likely to be toughened and remain in place until April, according to Government sources.

It is understood that at least 20 million people will need to have been vaccinated against coronavirus before any significant relaxing of the measures will be considered.

The Government uses specific criteria to determine which tier an area should be placed in. These are the five categories used to determine which level an area falls into:

■The rate of infection, particularly among the over-60s

■How quickly case rates are rising or falling

■The number of positive cases in the general population

■Pressure on the NHS – including current and projected NHS capacity

■Local context and exceptional circumstances such as a local, but contained, outbreak

Dr Robyn Dewis, Derby city director of public health, said: “These severe restrictions are unfortunately necessary for us to regain control of the virus, with COVID cases growing, particularly in light of the new variant.

“Our fight back against COVID continues despite the measures in place. We do hope that as we go into 2021 our roll-out of community testing and the national vaccine programme will help Derby move back into eased measures as soon as it is safe for us to do so.”