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New restrictions on the coronavirus have come into effect in England and more than half the population faces new restrictions on their social life.
Vast strips of the north, London and parts of the southeast are now subject to harsher COVID-19 rules.
At 6 pm on Friday, no visit Welsh of areas of high infection took effect and North Ireland entered a stricter lockdown than the rest of the UK.
The toughest measures have placed more than 28 million people in England in the top two tiers of restrictions.
Measures at levels 1, 2 and 3 of the UK blockade system
They include:
- Tier 3 rules in Lancashire mean that socializing is hardly allowed outside of a domestic bubble and that pubs, bars and restaurants are closed except for take-out services.
- The areas recently affected by the new Tier 3 rules are Burnley, Blackburn with Darwen, Blackpool, Chorley, Fylde, Hyndburn, Lancaster, Pendle, Preston, Ribble Valley, Rossendale, South Ribble, West Lancashire, and Wyre.
- The Level 2 rules, which means that households cannot mix indoors or in pubs, cafes and restaurants, went into effect in parts of the north and southeast of England.
- The areas recently affected by the Tier 2 rules are London, Essex, Elmbridge, Barrow-in-Furness, North East Derbyshire, Erewash, Chesterfield, and York.
The rule change at midnight on Friday came just hours after the prime minister took on the city of Manchester promising to impose the highest level of restriction, with or without the blessing of Mayor Andy Burnham.
At a press conference in Downing Street, Boris Johnson described the coronavirus outbreak in the city as “serious.”
“Based on recent trends, in just over two weeks there will be more COVID patients in intensive care than at the peak of the first wave, so I urge the mayor to reconsider and engage constructively.
“I cannot emphasize enough: time is of the essence. Every day that passes before action is taken means that more people will go to the hospital, more people will end up in intensive care and, tragically, more people will die.
“Of course, if an agreement cannot be reached, I will have to intervene to protect Manchester hospitals and save the lives of Manchester residents,” he said.
But on Friday, the government’s top scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, said in the same report that “baseline” level 3 measures “are almost certainly not enough” to reduce infection numbers.
And when asked by Sky News Deputy Political Editor Sam Coates if people would die as a result of the dispute between Downing Street and Manchester leaders, he said: “These are terribly difficult decisions and there is damage on both sides, as is previously noted.
“From a purely epidemiological point of view, it’s important to go pretty fast on this, it’s important to make sure you’re trying hard enough to get the R below 1 and the sooner you do that, the sooner you’ll have this under control.”
In Liverpool, Level 3 restrictions have been in place since Monday, but after it was announced yesterday that Lancashire would join them at the “very high” risk level, there were allegations of inconsistencies between the two regions.
The city’s mayor, Joe Anderson, described the decision to close the gyms in Liverpool but not in Lancashire as an “inconsistent disaster.”
In a joint statement, Regional Mayor Steve Rotherham and six other local leaders added: “We simply will not accept that our region is treated differently from other Level 3 areas, without strong scientific evidence.
“These inconsistencies in restrictions between areas within the same level run the risk of undermining the new system from the start.”
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According to the latest data from the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), the UK R number – the speed at which the coronavirus spreads – has increased from 1.2 to 1.5 to 1.3 to 1.5 on average.
This means that for every 10 people who have the virus, they will infect between 13 and 15 more.
Hospital admissions for COVID-19 increased by another 844 on Friday, with a total of 5,311 patients currently being treated for the virus in England.
There was another 15,650 new confirmed cases nationwide, up from 18,980 on Thursday and 19,724 on Wednesday.
And there was also a large increase in the total believed to be infected in England, going from an estimated 224,400 to 336,500 in one week.
