Coronavirus: Matt Hancock to announce changes to tier system

The government has indicated that more areas of England will be placed under the highest level of restrictions, Tier 4, in an attempt to curb the rising coronavirus rate in many parts of the country.

The Health Secretary is due to appear in the House of Commons after 2.30pm today to provide further information on the planned changes.

The announcement comes on the day that that the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine was approved in the UK, paving the way for mass rollout.

• READ MORE: Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine approved in UK

The changes are expected to come into effect within days, with the I newspaper reporting that they could be introduced on Saturday.

Lower tier areas such as Northamptonshire and Leicestershire, which have seen a sharp spike in their coronavirus rates in the most recent figures, could join the likes of London, Essex, Kent and Sussex in Tier 4.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock

Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the creation of Tier 4 on December 19 following an emergency cabinet meeting, in an effort to contain a new, more transmissible strain of coronavirus detected in the South East.

Sussex was moved into the highest level of coronavirus alert on Boxing Day following an announcement on December 23.

While the government has indicated that the focus of today's announcement is likely to be the moving of lower tiered areas into Tier 4, some sources have reported discussions taking place over the introduction of a fifth tier.

A senior Whitehall source told The Express that the government is "ruling nothing out" as "the new strain is of serious concern" and "Tier 4 appears to not be strong enough".

• READ MORE: What could Tier 5 involve and could it be introduced in Sussex?

The source described the heightened measures as "another level on to Tier 4, so like a Tier 5".

But another Whitehall source told The Telegraph that the expansion of Tier 4 was more likely than the introduction of Tier 5 in the "immediate future".

There is currently no outline for what Tier 5 restrictions might include, but national newspapers have reported that it could be similar to the lockdown measures introduced in March.

The current Tier restirctions in England Credit: PA Graphics

The tier each area of England is placed in is decided by the government after reviewing five factors:

– case detection rates in all age groups
– case detection rates in the over-60s
– the rate at which cases are rising or falling
– the positivity rate – the number of positive cases detected as a percentage of tests taken
– Pressure on the NHS, including current and projected occupancy

In recent figures (taken from the week leading up to December 23) there was a significant rise in the number of coronavirus cases reported in all areas of Sussex.

Speaking to Radio 4's Today programme yesterday, professor of infectious diseases epidemiology at University College London and member of the Government's New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag) Andrew Hayward said he believed the UK was "entering a very dangerous new phase of the pandemic".

The Covid-19 growth rates in England Credit: PA Graphics

To combat this, he called for "decisive, early, national action to prevent a catastrophe in January and February".

"A 50 per cent increase in transmissibility means that the previous levels of restrictions that worked before won't work now, and so Tier 4 restrictions are likely to be necessary or even higher than that," he said.

"I think we're really looking at a situation where we're moving into near lockdown, but we've got to learn the lessons from the first lockdown."