The whole of Somerset – including the Burnham-On-Sea area – will be moving into Coronavirus Tier 3 from Boxing Day, the Health Secretary Matt Hancock has announced.
The new Tier 3 restrictions in Somerset will come into effect at one minute past midnight on Boxing Day, he announced in an effort to halt rising numbers of new Covid cases in the region. Click here for the Tier 3 restrictions.
Somerset (including the North Somerset area), Bristol, Gloucestershire, Swindon, the Isle of Wight, the New Forest and Northamptonshire, as well as Cheshire and Warrington, will all be escalated to tier three.
What are the rules in tier 3?
- People must not meet socially indoors or in most outdoor places with anybody they do not live with, or who is not in their support bubble; this includes in any private garden or at most outdoor venues. At other outdoor spaces such as parks or beaches, people must not socialise in groups of more than six.
- As in all other tiers, non-essential shops can open, as can gyms, hairdressers and other personal care businesses. Places of worship can open and weddings are allowed within local restrictions.
- Hospitality venues must close, except for delivery and takeaway service. In tier 3, hotels and other accommodation providers must also close, except for specific work purposes where people cannot return home.
- Outdoor sports, including golf and tennis, can continue in all tiers, as can amateur team sports such as football. Unlike the first two tiers, spectators cannot watch sport in tier 3.
- Everyone who can work from home should do so.
- You can travel within your area for work, education and purposes of providing care or medical assistance, but should avoid travelling outside your area and reduce the number of journeys you make wherever possible.
- If you live in a tier 3 area, you must continue to follow tier 3 rules when you travel to a tier 1 or tier 2 area.
Full details of Tier 3 restrictionsÂ
Sussex, Oxfordshire, Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire, those parts in Essex not already in tier four, Waverley in Surrey, and Hampshire – including Portsmouth and Southampton but with the exception of the New Forest – will be escalated to tier four. Cornwall and Herefordshire will be escalated to tier two.
Matt Hancock told a Downing Street press conference that this “festive period is going to be very different”.
He says: “Just as we have got a tiered system in place, we have discovered a new more contagious virus, a variant which is spreading at a dangerous rate.”
Across the UK, he says cases have risen by 75% over the past week and hospital admissions are at 1,909 a day – the highest figure since mid-April.
“I know how hard 2020 has been for everybody,” added Hancock. “We mustn’t give up now,” he says adding “we must suppress the virus until a vaccine can make us safe. There are brighter skies ahead.”
