Does 70% of England REALLY need to be in Tier Three? How 86 areas under harshest restrictions are recording fewer Covid cases than national average and five parts of the country with the quickest-growing outbreaks escaped toughest curbs
Total of 38 million people will be faced with Tier 3 come Saturday after swathes of South East hit with curbs
Tory MPs said it was totally unacceptable that low infection towns dragged into Tier 3 due to hotspot areas
A lockdown split did emerge today in Surrey, but it has led to more confusion about criteria being used
What tier am I in? Full list of areas by tier and search your lockdown status Mirror 16/12/2020 Dan Bloom & Oliver Milne
More than half of England is now in the strictest form of local lockdown after London and parts of Essex and Hertfordshire joined swathes of the north in Tier 3.
In total 10.8million extra people have gone into Tier 3 as of 12.01am on Wednesday 16 December.
If no areas in the north and Midlands get knocked back down to Tier 2 later this week, there will be 34.2million people in Tier 3 in total - well over half of England.
The new arrangements took effect on December 2 after England’s blanket lockdown ended. Restrictions have been tightened after Government scientific advisers warned that previous measures had not been effective enough.