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These are the most up-to-date covid-19 infection numbers for the Liverpool city region, just one day before the government announces its review of the current tiering system.
When the national lockdown ended on December 2, the government placed all areas of England in one of three new levels of restrictions.
The levels are more difficult than the ones that were first introduced in the fall, with the aim of lowering fees before things wind down at Christmas.
However, this has not worked in some areas, and the government confirmed that London, most of Essex and parts of Hertfordshire will move to the upper level as of midnight tonight.
This is due to the increasing rate of viruses in these areas.
The Liverpool city region will hope to avoid the same fate, having moved from Tier 3 to Tier 2 after the national shutdown.
Matt Hancock will announce which areas will sit at which levels in Parliament tomorrow, with the changes going into effect from Saturday.
Local leaders are reasonably confident of staying at the second level of restrictions, allowing restaurants and pubs that serve food to stay open, as rates here have remained stable so far.
There have been some small increases in certain districts after the move to Tier 2, but the numbers have not increased to a point where Tier 3 restrictions are likely to be imposed.
These are the most recent infection rates for each city district for the week ending December 12.
Halton – 114.4 (148 cases)
Knowsley – 99.4 (150 cases)
Liverpool – 95.2 (474 cases)
St Helens – 116.8 (211 cases)
Sefton – 67.7 (187 cases)
Wirral – 67.3 (218 cases)
The average rate for the Liverpool city region for this period is 89.0 cases per 100,000.
When the weekly changes for infection rates in each municipality are observed, a rather heterogeneous picture is shown.
In Liverpool there has been a 6.8% increase in cases compared to the previous week, while Sefton has seen a 7.9% decrease.
Knowsley has seen a 3.4% increase week-over-week in numbers, while Halton has witnessed a 9.2% decrease.
However, the big picture is of case rates that don’t really change much, but stabilize without much variation.
If you look at the city region average, there has only been a 0.4% increase from the previous week.
The only place to see a recent and consistent rise in the numbers is Wirral, up 21.1% in the prior week.
But the peninsula had been reduced by far to the lowest number of any part of the conurbation.
Another additional complication is the launch of massive asymptomatic tests in all districts of the city.
Find the latest covids-19 rates for your local area
While this is not being done to the scale of the Liverpool pilot in November and a large number of additional cases have not been found so far, there may still be enough infections located to cause some small increases in some districts.
It is also important to note that it is probably too early for us to see the full impact of the relaxed Tier 2 measures that were applied to our region earlier in the month.
It usually takes about two weeks for people to start showing symptoms after an infection, so we can get a better idea of this impact when we get the data for the beginning of this week.
So the current numbers are likely enough to maintain Tier 2 status for the Liverpool city region, but the strong message is that we are not out of the woods yet and that things could quickly turn problematic if the people stop doing the right things to try to suppress the virus here.
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