Coronavirus: Three-tier lockdown system aims to get COVID-19 under control by Christmas, says minister
Written by News on 12/10/2020
The aim of the government’s new three-tier coronavirus lockdown system is to get the virus under control by the new year – and hopefully before Christmas – a minister has told Sky News.
Speaking to Kay Burley, Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said: “The purpose of doing this is to ensure that we get the virus under control so that by the time we get through to after Christmas we are in that position where it’s under control.
“Indeed I hope it will be sooner than that.”
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Mr Dowden said the government had to act to control “rapidly rising cases” of COVID-19 in parts of the country.
“The point of moving to this tiered system is so that in those most highly affected areas, we’ve got measures in place to control the virus,” he said.
“If those measures are successful, we hope to be able to take areas out of those higher levels of restrictions.”
Prime Minister Boris Johnson will set out details of England’s new system in a statement to MPs at around 3.30pm this afternoon, having chaired a meeting of the government’s emergency COBRA committee.
He will then address the nation at a Downing Street news conference from 6pm, alongside Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Professor Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer.
Areas in England will be labelled as “medium”, “high” or “very high” risk under the new system.
In the worst affected areas, pubs, gyms and casinos are expected to be required to shut and all but essential travel banned, but restaurants and pubs offering “substantive meals” would stay open.
A senior government source has said there will be a “degree of discretion” for local leaders within the tiers.
Talks with local leaders are continuing to decide which parts of the country will face which restrictions.
The chancellor has announced that workers at businesses forced to shut due to stricter lockdown measures will have two-thirds of their salaries paid by the government, but many local leaders have called for more support.
Merseyside is expected to be among the areas put under Tier 3 restrictions, but there has yet to be an agreement on a financial support package for the area.
Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson told Sky News that the government had decided on closures without consulting local leaders.
“This nonsense about we’ve talked with local government leaders and they’ve agreed with us a process, is just blatantly a lie,” he told Kay Burley.
“They’ve made their mind up, they’ve told us what they’re going to do.”
Mr Anderson added later on Twitter that leaders in the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority had been told that restaurants will not have to close.
His criticism was echoed by St Helens Council leader David Baines, who said the level of restrictions and the detail of businesses which would be forced to close were “not up for negotiation” with ministers.
Members of Britain’s hospitality sector have started legal proceedings to challenge the “catastrophic” restrictions.
Sacha Lord, the night-time economy adviser for Greater Manchester, said local leaders had not been presented with “any tangible scientific evidence to merit a full closure” of hospitality in the area.
The culture secretary said ministers have “robust evidence for doing this”, adding: “The evidence shows that there is a higher risk of transmissions in hospitality settings. There is academic evidence from the United States.”
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Labour’s Lucy Powell, MP for Manchester Central, disputed this, saying: “Government and scientists still haven’t produced this evidence.
“The big problem for them is local leaders have all the same data (in fact better data for their areas) and they know hospitality settings make up a very small proportion of infection transmission.”
Labour’s shadow transport secretary Jim McMahon told Sky News that communication on the new restrictions has been “awful” and the “unfairness” of the measures has been “acutely felt”.
He called for more local control over coronavirus testing and restrictions, arguing this would put the country in a “better position to control the virus”.
(c) Sky News 2020: Coronavirus: Three-tier lockdown system aims to get COVID-19 under control by Christmas, says minister
