Boris Johnson suggests England will not return to regional Covid tiers
England is unlikely to return to a localised tier system of restrictions as Covid infections and hospital admissions slow, as Boris Johnson admitted the infectiousness of the new variant had made the system less workable.
The UK has now vaccinated 9.2 million people, with almost 9 in 10 of all those aged over 80 vaccinated and over half of those in their 70s receiving a jab.
Mark Harper, chair of the Covid Recovery Group of Tory MPs, said a simpler system of curbs would be welcome but a national system should not lead to a significantly slower easing of restrictions, given vaccinations have progressed on a national basis.
Other figures, including the mayor of South Yorkshire, Dan Jarvis, warned the government not to pull support from regions too quickly as restrictions lift, saying any review must be done in consultation with local leaders regardless of whether the tier system is resurrected.
Speaking during a visit to a vaccination centre in Batley, West Yorkshire, the prime minister said most regions were responding in a similar way. “It may be that a national approach, going down the tiers in a national way, might be better this time round, given that the disease is behaving much more nationally,” he said.
Johnson said he had not ruled out returning to a regional approach if there were obvious advantages but the virus picture across the country was relatively uniform.
“If you look at the way the new variant has taken off across the country, it’s a pretty national phenomenon,” he said. “The charts I see, we’re all sort of moving pretty much in the same sort of way. I mean there are a few discrepancies, a few differences, so it may be that we will go for a national approach but there may be an advantage still in some regional differentiation as well. I’m keeping an open mind on that.”
Harper, who leads the 60-strong group of MPs demanding a swifter easing of restrictions, has said that the economy should begin to reopen from the beginning of April once vaccinations of the most vulnerable begin to have a significant effect on hospitalisations and deaths.
“Getting rid of restrictions on a national basis has the benefit of being a lot more straightforward for people and for businesses. It does not need be slower on that basis, if you do it on a proportion of risk reduction, starting on 8 March until all the most vulnerable are protected,” he said.
The health secretary, Matt Hancock, previously said ministers would review the tier system in the coming weeks, telling a press conference last week it was being examined “right now”.
Johnson has pledged to set out a roadmap for the easing of restrictions in the week beginning 22 February, looking at the metrics for unlocking different parts of the economy, such as vaccination numbers and hospital admission rates.
However, the communities secretary, Robert Jenrick, had said it was very likely the government would “try to make use of the tiered system” in easing lockdown. “It’s sensible that we target restrictions on those places where the virus is most prevalent,” he said last week.
Johnson has said he hopes schools in England will start to reopen from 8 March but if a national strategy for unlocking restrictions is pursued, it is likely to mean a slower easing of other measures, especially if the reopening of schools was to cause an increase in virus transmission in early spring.
Jarvis said the measures must wind down cautiously and support must not be ended prematurely. “We all desperately want to get back to normality, but the winding down of measures against Covid needs to be done carefully and in consultation with national, regional and local leaders – just as every step in this process should have been, and too often was not,” he said.“Above all, we should not forget that the huge economic disruption of Covid will endure well after the pandemic is over. We are still in a crisis. Support must not be cut off too soon, or we will cause needless harm to people who have already had to endure so much.”
The shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, said localised systems had been undermined by a lack of support for quarantined workers as well as an ineffective test-and-trace system, issues he said would still be present.
“Whether it’s tiered systems, localised whack-a-mole strategies or national rules, Boris Johnson will never truly break transmission chains in the coming weeks unless he provides decent financial support to allow people to isolate, makes workplaces Covid secure with guidelines on ventilation and mask wearing, and puts local public health teams in charge of contact tracing rather than expensive failing private sector outsourcing companies,” he said.