OXFORD EXPERT’S FEARS FOR TIERS
Plan to put swathes of country under strictest rules ‘could be hard to justify as cases are falling’
COVID tiers announced today will be ‘hard to justify’ if cases continue to fall before the lockdown in England is lifted on December 2, a leading Oxford expert said last night.
Professor Carl Heneghan said areas placed into the strictest Tiers Two and Three could be in a ‘very different position’ next week.
Most areas are expected to fall into those tiers despite tumbling national infection rates. Professor Heneghan, an epidemiologist at Oxford University, said if rates continue to fall ‘it will be hard to justify tougher tiered restrictions’. Instead, there should be clear criteria which decides whether areas face the strictest measures.
He insisted: ‘By the time we get to December 2 we will be in very different position than we are now, therefore we need to be much more flexible and reactive, and set out clear criteria.’ He told MailOnline: ‘There is no point in saying to people “this is where you are now [in terms of Covid] and you’ll be in this tier next week”.
‘We should be explaining to people the two important criteria that should decide which areas go into which tiers – symptomatic cases and hospital rates. For instance, say
Kent is announced to be in Tier Three and it has 50 per cent of hospital beds occupied by Covid patients, you could tell people they have to adjust that to 30 per cent to come out of Tier Three. That’s objective criteria.’
His warning came as the UK recorded its highest daily virus death toll since the beginning of May. Official data showed 696 deaths were confirmed yesterday. This is the highest since 726 deaths were reported on May 5.
Meanwhile Boris Johnson last night tried to prepare Tory MPs for most of England going into the top two Covid tiers by saying it was needed to avoid a third lockdown.
The PM faced disquiet at a meeting of the 1922 Committee of backbenchers, who criticised the new system. He told them over Zoom the restrictions under the tiers would be ‘tough’ but were designed to avoid another national shutdown
Mr Johnson said: ‘I don’t want them to be any tougher than they need to be, but I have to warn you – they are going to be tough.’
He stressed that mass testing and Covid vaccines would help get the country out of strict measures.
He compared it to ‘steadily starting to insert graphite rods into a nuclear reactor’. But there is serious upset on the Tory backbenches over the tier system. Jake Berry, of the Northern Research Group of Tory MPs, said: ‘We repeat our call for a clear route out of the tiering system and to make sure that the North does not get stuck in a Hotel California lockdown where we can enter Tier Three but never leave.’
The Covid Operations Committee, which advises the PM on virus policy, was reviewing the data late into last night. Most areas are expected to go into Tier Two or Three, where the most stringent curbs apply. But sources said a handful of places are likely to remain in Tier One. These could include Devon and Cornwall, where Covid case numbers are low.
Liverpool could move down a tier from Three to Two after a testing programme reduced infection rates by two-thirds in recent weeks.
Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham said yesterday he expected the region to go back into Tier Three. Ministers were last night poring over the data for London, but were hoping that it could remain in Tier Two after fears it could be moved to Three. They will review which areas are in which tier every 14 days.
‘New rules are going to be tough’