Covid-19: Ministers to decide on extension of tier 4 curbs to more areas

PA Media

Ministers are due to decide whether to move more areas of England under the toughest restrictions amid concern over spreading of a new variant of Covid-19.

Cabinet minister Robert Jenrick said No 10 would make a "judgment" on whether the tiers system was "strong enough".

He said there was no "immediate plan" to widen curbs on Boxing Day but "the number of cases is rising".

The UK's chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance has said extra curbs could be needed in more areas.

He told a Downing Street briefing on Monday that measures could "need to be increased in some places, in due course, not reduced".

Mr Jenrick told BBC Breakfast that the Covid operations committee, chaired by PM will meet on Wednesday morning to discuss the system, and said they were "trying to retain the robust tiered system" which takes a "proportionate approach" across the country, but said it had been designed before the new variant became apparent which is a "game changer".

He said the new variant was now present in other areas of the country, albeit to a "lesser extent" than in London, south-east and the east of England.

Mr Jenrick said decisions from the committee would be communicated "as soon as we can" and that there was "absolutely no plan" at the moment to change restrictions before Christmas Day.

• UK-France services return as travel ban eased
• Tighter Covid rules likely, top adviser warns
• Will virus variant force the Nightingales to open?

Note: Changes to the Full-Text RSS free service

December 23, 2020 at 09:33PM

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55422358