Stay at home order for six million more

MILLIONS more people in England will be placed into Tier 4 from Boxing Day – but Leicestershire will remain in Tier 3.

Neighbouring Northamptonshire will move to Tier 3 – the same as Leicestershire - while Cambridgeshire will jump two levels to Tier 4, as the new strain of coronavirus causes an upsurge in cases across the south east and East Anglia.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the variant coronavirus was spreading at a “dangerous rate” as he announced the fresh Tier 4 restrictions yesterday.

He also said cases of another new mutant coronavirus linked to South Africa had been found in the UK and placed travel restrictions on the country.

Areas moving to the toughest Tier 4 – where there is a stay at home order – from Boxing Day are: Sussex, Oxfordshire, Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire, those parts of Essex not already in Tier 4 and parts of Hampshire.

Bristol, Gloucestershire, Somerset,

Swindon, the Isle of Wight, Northamptonshire, Cheshire and Warrington will all be escalated to Tier 3.

Cornwall and Herefordshire move from Tier 1 to Tier 2.

The changes mean an additional six million people will be in a Tier 4 lockdown from Boxing Day.

Mr Hancock told a Downing Street press conference: “Just as we had got a tiered system in place that was able to control this virus we have discovered a new, more contagious virus – a variant that is spreading at a dangerous rate.”

“This new variant is highly concerning because it is yet more transmissible and it appears to have mutated further than the new variant that has been discovered in the UK.”

He said anyone who has been to South Africa in the past two weeks must isolate, along with anyone they have had contact with.

The number of new infections is growing by between one per cent and six per cent every day.