Greater Manchester’s leaders will be pressing the Government hard to move the region into Tier 2 when the gold committee meets next week.

Sir Richard Leese, speaking at the weekly GM Covid press conference said that with rates falling and hospitals under a lot pressure, the region should have a very good case for moving down a Tier at the review saying that the numbers present a clear case for Greater Manchester to be moved into Tier 2 restrictions with the region’s figures on a par with Londona nd Liverpool when they were placed in Tier 2.

The call came as the Co-Chair of the Greater Manchester LEP lou Cordwell said that “We remain hugely concerned by the scale of the impact to our local economy,” including fears of 100,000 people becoming unemployed in GM next year.”

Business, she said,needed a clear medium-term glidepath” out of the current restrictions, rather than ”flip-flopping” between them,with the hospitality sector and its supply chain having been particularly affected”

Meanwhile Mayor Andy Burnham said that “This is a critical time for the economy, particularly the city-centre economy” adding that “If you were to keep cities in Tier 3 over the holiday period, it does have the effect of creating an incentive for people to have more informal gatherings in the home”

Howeve rthe Mayor noted that a airly wide range’ of infection rates across Greater Manchester could see us split into different tiers.

London had the highest prevalence of COVID-19 cases in the week to December 6, Public Health England (PHE) said today, raising the prospect that the capital will be moved into the strictest level of restrictions in the coming days.

Case rates per 100,000 people in London stood at 191.8, PHE said, putting the city ahead of regions in the highest level of tier 3 restrictions, such as the West Midlands, where cases had fallen to 158.4 per 100,000 from 196.8 a week earlier.

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