The Health Secretary has announced that Essex, Norfolk, Sussex, Surrey, Oxfordshire and Hampshire will enter Tier 4 restrictions from Boxing Day.
Addressing the nation in this afternoon#s press conference, Hancock said that across the country Covid cases have risen by 57% with hospitals filled nearly to April levels.
He said that the Tier 3 system is not enough to control the new variant of Covid and it is necessary to bring new action as it is better to act sooner.
Bristol, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Swindon, Isle of Wight, New Forest, Northamptonshire, Cheshire and Warrington will go into Tier 3 he announced with Cornwall and Herefordshire going into Tier 2
A new strain of Coronavirus, which is believed to have originated in South Africa, has been detected in the UK.
“This new variant is highly concerning, because it is yet more transmissible, and it appears to have mutated further than the new variant has been discovered in the UK,” he said
People are in quarantine in cases and close contacts of cases, found here in the UK,there are immediate restrictions on travel from South Africa and the Government is asking anyone in the UK, who has been in South Africa, in the past fortnight, and anyone who has had close contact with someone who’s been in South Africa, in the last fortnight, immediately quarantine.
39,237 new cases have been recorded in the latest reporting period in the UK the highest daily rise so far.
A further 744 Covid-related deaths have been reported, which is the highest toll since 29th April.
The latest R-value across England could be as high as 1.4, latest data shows. Further afield, the latest R estimate for the whole of the UK is between 1.1 and 1.3, and the daily growth rate for infections is estimated to be between +1 per cent and +6 per cent.
Meanwhile The AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine could be approved by UK regulators “shortly after” Christmas
Professor Sir John Bell, Oxford University’s regius professor of medicine, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that he expects approval by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) “pretty shortly”.
He said: “They got data quite a long time ago but that was the first set of data. They receive multiple sets of data. So we are getting to be about prime time now, I would expect some news pretty shortly.
“I doubt we’ll make Christmas now, but just after Christmas I would expect. I have no concerns whatsoever that the data looks better than ever.”
