Ministers today dragged another 16 authorities into Tier Two, as Britain creeps another step closer to a de facto lockdown with Number 10 continuing to rely on its 'whack-a-mole' strategy to try to contain the disease.
All of the areas will be hit by tougher restrictions banning socialising indoors with anyone they don't live with from Saturday, the Department of Health confirmed.
The areas entering Tier Two are: East Riding of Yorkshire, Hull, North East Lincolnshire, North Lincolnshire, Dudley, Staffordshire, Telford and the Wrekin, Amber Valley, Bolsover, Derbyshire Dales, Derby City, South Derbyshire, the whole of High Peak in Derbyshire, Charnwood, Luton and Oxford City.
The key factor of Tier Two rules is the ban on indoor socialising with anyone you don't live with, which rules out meeting in pubs, restaurants, private homes or anywhere outside of work. Areas must continue to follow the rule of six outdoors and adhere to all other national social distancing restrictions.
It comes amid fears another six million more people in England are poised to be stung by Tier Three lockdown restrictions this week amid spiralling coronavirus cases.
Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick today resisted calls from the Government's scientific experts for another national lockdown as he said 'you can't have a stop-start country' and the 'very firm view' remains that a 'circuit breaker' is not the right way forward.
However, he conceded the 'virus is in a bad place in all parts of the country' as he urged the nation to 'redouble our efforts' to comply with existing coronavirus rules in order to slow the spread of infection.
His comments came after the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) piled fresh pressure on Boris Johnson to impose tougher restrictions as it warned up to 85,000 people could die in a second wave.
A 'reasonable worst case scenario' put forward by SAGE suggested daily deaths could remain above 500 for three months or more until March next year.
The Government's decision to stick to its localised approach was illustrated this morning as it appeared increasingly likely that residents in the West Midlands, North East and West Yorkshire will be dragged into the toughest bracket of Tier Three measures which includes closing pubs and banning household mixing.
It means 14 million people across England could be living under the top tier of coronavirus curbs by the weekend. Currently there are eight million residents in Tier Three towns, cities and boroughs, in Greater Manchester, Liverpool, Lancashire and Nottinghamshire.
Last night, Nottinghamshire announced it was heading for a Tier Three lockdown and became the first county to agree to a ban on selling alcohol after 9pm, if booze is bought to consume off premises. There are fears it has set a precedent and that other regions could be forced to comply with restrictions that go above and beyond standard Tier Three measures.
Meanwhile, leaders in West Yorkshire have denied they are in a 'stand-off' with Number 10 over plans to plunge 1.8million people in the region into a Tier Three lockdown. The leader of Bradford Council, Susan Hinchcliffe, insisted the crunch talks were not at an impasse, despite rumbling on for three days with little progress.
West Yorkshire is poised for tougher restrictions after routine NHS operations were cancelled at one of England's biggest trusts in Leeds where Covid-19 patients on wards have reached levels higher than in the April/May peak. Across all of Yorkshire the case rate per 100,000 is 392 compared to the 224 per 100,000 on average for England.
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