TIER 4 EDGING CLOSER
HULL AND THE EAST RIDING TO STAY IN TIER 3 LOCKDOWN BUT ...
HULL and East Riding are clinging on to a Tier 3 lockdown after escaping the tightest restrictions which will plunge millions into a grim new year.
It was a day where the UK public were bombarded with updates on the fight against coronavirus.
It started off with what deputy chief medical officer Jonathan Van Tam described as the “pretty grim and depressing” announcement that 44 million people will now be under Tier 4 lockdown from New Year’s Eve.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the House of Commons it was “necessary to apply Tier 4 measures to a wider area” but East Yorkshire and the wider Humber area was not included in the list.
The region will continue under Tier 3 restrictions with surrounding areas such as York and the whole of North Yorkshire also being moved to a Tier 3 lockdown.
However, the wall is closing on the region as nearby residents in Lincolnshire will wake up on January 31 in a Tier 4 lockdown.
Large swathes of the North, Midlands and South are also now in Tier 4 leaving Yorkshire and the Humber, including North and d North East Lincolnshire, under the he more relaxed lockdown rules.
Mr Hancock said: “Sharply rising ng cases and the hospitalisations that at follow demonstrate the need to act ct where the virus is spreading.”
The Health Secretary told MPS P that the majority of the 53,135 cases recorded yesterday “are re believed to be the new variant”.
He added: “Unfortunately, this is new variant is now spreading ng across most of England and cases es are doubling fast.
“It is therefore necessary to apply Tier 4 measures to a wider area, including the remaining parts of the South East, as well as large parts of the Midlands, the North West, the North East and the South West.”
Shortly after the announcement the Government confirmed the UK recorded its highest daily figure since April 24 after a further 981 people died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19.
In Hull and East Yorkshire, cases are now just shy of 25,000 since the pandemic began after 269 posisi positive test results were confirmed yesterday.
Two further deaths were also recorded in Hull’s hospitals bringing the total to 462.
Education Secretary Gavin Williamson was next up to address the House of Commons by announcing an update on schools opening in January.
However, his announcement was not clear enough for parents in East Yorkshire after stating a majority of primary schools across England will open as planned on January 4, 4 but those within a “small number of areas” where infection rates are higher will not reopen.
The return for secondary schools and colleges has also once again been delayed.
Only vulnerable and key workers’ children will return to school on January 4 with others due to start remote learning that week.
Those with exams coming up this year – years 11 and 13 students – will return to secondary school on January 11 with the rest expected to return on January 18.
Gavin Williamson said that te testing will begin “in earnest” in Ja January, with those in exam years at the head of the queue.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson sa said parents should allow their ch children to return to school unless th they are within areas of very high in infection rates.
“Schools are safe, the problem is not the schools,” he said.
“Send your children, send your fa family to school in the normal way, ab absolutely right to do.”
Mr Johnson also admitted th that the decision to put England u under another national lockdown w was “considered intensively” but that it was right to continue with tiering.
The Prime Minister added that he hoped for restrictions to have “receded into the past” by Spring 2021.
“If we’re right and the vaccination programme does have the positive effects that we think it can have, and I stress these are ifs, then clearly a lot of the non-pharmaceutical interventions…will recede into the past,” he said.
“We’ll be able to do things very differently.”