Due to the rising number of cases, Boris Johnson has designed a new system to prevent the further spread of Covid. On Monday, he unveiled a new “three-tiered” system of Covid restrictions in England.
Boris Johnson reveals three-tier system
The country will be divided into several areas with a sliding scale of lockdown. It aims to curb rising rates of Covid infection. There are three alert levels.
The first alert level is medium. Medium will cover a significant part of the country and consists of the national measures that came into force last month, such as the rule of six and the 10 pm hospitality curfew. All of England excluding regions placed on a higher level is at this level.
The second alert level is high. It aims to reduce household-to-household transmission by banning all mixing between households indoors. However, support bubbles will still be allowed. The rule of six will still apply outdoors. Almost all of the areas that are already under local restrictions are set to automatically move to this level. All regions of Northern England with the exception of Merseyside comes under this bracket.
The third alert level is very high. These include the most stringent measures for the areas with the highest rates of infection. Here the transmission is rising “most rapidly”. Measures mean that social mixing indoors and in private gardens will be banned. Pubs and bars will be closed unless they can “offer a sufficient meal” so that they qualify as a restaurant. Travel in and out of the areas is not advised by the authorities. Merseyside is placed on this level.
In all situations, schools and places of worship will remain open. The system will be enforced form Wednesday onwards with constant reviews will take place. You can check which tier your area is in using a postal checker. Alternatively the NHS Covid app will tell users which tier the live in.