The Health Secretary will today set out in Parliament the tier
which each local authority in England will fall under, in line
with the measures set out in the COVID-19 Winter Plan published
on Monday.
As announced earlier this week, the tiers have been toughened and
many more areas will be placed into the higher tiers in order to
safeguard the gains made during the period of national
restrictions.
The first review point for the current tier allocations will take
place by Wednesday 16 December.
This allows for the possibility of areas which continue to make
progress in slowing the spread of the disease to be moved down a
tier in advance of Christmas.
Decisions on tiers are made by ministers based on public health
recommendations informed by the following factors:
- Case detection rate (in all age groups and, in particular,
amongst the over 60s);
- How quickly case rates are rising or falling;
- Positivity in the general population;
- Pressure on the NHS – including current and projected (3-4
weeks out) NHS capacity – including admissions, general/acute/ICU
bed occupancy, staff absences; and
- Local context and exceptional circumstances such as a local
but contained outbreak.
If these indicators are not improving, an area may be moved up a
tier and if the trajectory improves, the area may move to a lower
tier.
Health and Social Care Secretary said
“Thanks to the hard work and sacrifice made by people up and down
the country, we are able to move out of national lockdown and
into more targeted local, tiered restrictions.
“I know for those of you faced with tier 3 restrictions this will
be a particularly difficult time but I want to reassure you that
we’ll be supporting your areas with mass community testing and
extra funding.
“By following the rules together we can get out of these tough
measures.”
The Contain Outbreak Management Fund will be extended so that it
can provide monthly payments to Local Authorities facing higher
restrictions until the end of the financial year, in recognition
of the ongoing public health and outbreak management costs of
tackling COVID-19. For those authorities in Tier 3, this funding
will amount to £4 per head of population per month, and for those
in Tier 2, it will amount to £2 per head of population per month.
The Joint Biosecurity Centre works closely with PHE, the NHS and
across government to monitor the number of new infections,
positivity rates, and pressures on the NHS.
These factors form their public health advice to the Chief
Medical Officer and Ministers through the Local Action Committee
and the COVID Operations Committee.
Final decisions on tiering are made by the Prime Minister at the
COVID Operations Committee.
The government will also publish an analysis of the health,
economic and social impacts of the tiered approach.
Local authorities that fall into tier 3 will be offered support
from NHS Test and Trace and the Armed Forces to deliver a
six-week rapid community testing programme.
Community testing will make use of rapid Lateral Flow Tests which
give results within an hour, and will focus on locating and
suppressing asymptomatic transmission. The more cases identified
and self-isolating, the quicker the control of virus transmission
which is essential to help areas move down a tier.
With some individuals with coronavirus showing no symptoms
increased community testing will help identify those who are
infected and infectious, but asymptomatic and unaware that they
might be spreading the disease, so that they can isolate and
protect others.
Local authorities will be able to decide whether to use lateral
flow test kits for targeted testing for high-risk workplaces and
industries, or for wider asymptomatic community testing, to find
positive cases more quickly and break chains of transmission.
Anyone who tests positive, using either a lateral flow test or an
existing swab test, must self-isolate along with their household
immediately and their contacts will be traced.
Rapid community testing will expand on existing testing
programmes within the NHS, care homes, universities and schools
to protect those most at risk, and builds on the pilots of
community testing which are taking place in Liverpool and Merthyr
Tydfil.
Notes to editors
- Guidance on what is allowed in each tier can be found on GOV
UK:https://www.gov.uk/guidance/local-restriction-tiers-what-you-need-to-know
- All available data has been assessed by the government,
including the Health and Social Care Secretary, NHS Test and
Trace, the Joint Biosecurity Centre (JBC), Public Health England
(PHE), the Chief Medical Officer and the Cabinet Office. Data
assessed includes incidence, test positivity and the growth rate
of the virus.
- A Watchlist will be published every Thursday detailing the
latest data at a regional level providing the rationale and data
behind these decisions.
