Nottinghamshire enters ‘Tier 3 plus’, with harshest restrictions

NOTTINGHAMSHIRE will be subject to the harshest coronavirus restrictions since March from tomorrow as ministers yesterday warned that cases were continuing to rise across the country.

In a move that has been nicknamed “Tier 3 plus”, Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, confirmed that the entire county would be placed under measures that go beyond those imposed in Liverpool, Manchester and other hotspots. On top of closing pubs and bars that do not serve meals, off-licence sales of alcohol will be banned across Nottinghamshire after 9pm, while nail bars, tanning salons and tattoo parlours will also be forced to shut.

Indoor entertainment and tourism venues will close, except for skating rinks, cinemas, concert halls and theatres. Around 8.7 million people across England will be living under the highest level of restrictions from this weekend.

Nottinghamshire has some of the highest infection rates in the country, with the weekly case rate now at 364 people per 100,000 in the county, rising to 493 in the city.

As of October 20, there were 194 confirmed Covid-19 cases at Nottingham University Hospitals Trust, which yesterday confirmed it had been forced to cancel four cancer operations this week.

Meanwhile, Bristol’s mayor, Marvin Rees, yesterday said it would be placed into a “Tier 1 plus”, which would include tighter enforcement of existing rules and the deployment of Covid marshalls. Mr Rees described the situation in Bris

tol as “challenging”, with a rate of 340 cases per 100,000 people in the city.

It came less than 24 hours after The Telegraph revealed that No 10 was privately preparing for the second wave of

Covid-19 to be more deadly than the first. An internal analysis suggests a more prolonged peak over weeks if not months, albeit less deadly on a daily basis.

The disclosure has reignited calls for Boris Johnson to go further than the tier system unveiled earlier this month, with the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies warning all of England should be under Tier 3 before Christmas.

Their concerns were echoed yesterday by Prof Sir Mark Walport, the Government’s former chief scientific adviser, who said it was possible that 25,000 people could be in hospital with the virus by the end of November.

Sir Mark suggested there were “still very many people that are vulnerable”.

Meanwhile, Prof Neil Ferguson, whose modelling prompted the UKwide lockdown in March, said that restrictions in Tier 2 and Tier 3 areas of England were “unlikely to cause daily cases and deaths to fall rapidly”.

He said modelling suggested this could leave the country with “high levels” of Covid cases, demand on healthcare and deaths “until spring 2021”.