Covid: 44 million in England under toughest Tier 4 rules from Thursday banglamirrornews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from banglamirrornews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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Video report by ITV News Political Editor Paul Brand
A total of 44 million people will be under Tier 4 Covid restrictions on Thursday as the government extends the toughest rules to cover more areas in England.
More of the Midlands, the North East, parts of the North West and South West of England will enter the highest coronavirus measures on New Year s Eve, Matt Hancock has announced.
This means three quarters of England will now be in Tier 4, or 78% of the population of England, from December 31.
Watch the announcement in full:
Addressing MPs in the Commons, the health secretary said: The NHS is under very significant pressure. and we can see the impact this is happening, the threat to life is real.
Sixty per cent of England will be in toughest Tier 3 lockdown by TONIGHT: Another 11m people in London and the South East are hit with new restrictions from midnight after daily cases rose 37% to 20,263
Vast swathes of the South East will be thrust into the harshest set of Covid restrictions from midnight tonight
Matt Hancock said tough new rules will come into effect in London just after midnight on Wednesday morning
Large areas of Hertfordshire and Essex will also go into Tier 3 after seeing sharp and exponential growth
Change will leave 34m people in England under the top-tier of Covid rules, which force restaurants to shut
COVID daily cases jump 50% in a week to 18,450 as ministers threaten to CANCEL Christmas: Pressure on Boris to scrap five-day break from restrictions as Government crisis talks with other UK leaders fail to reach agreement
Restrictions are supposed to be eased to allow up to 3 households to meet for 5 days over the festive period
But scientists fear this could fuel new Covid variant that may be behind a surge of cases in southern England
Urgent talks are under way in Whitehall on whether to tighten regulations in response to rising cases
Leading medical journals have published rare joint editorial calling for the relaxation to be abandoned
Most of the cases happened between 2000 and 2019.
She told the Health and Social Care Select Committee that she believed the main reason the scandal went on for so long is a failure of the trust to listen to families. Image: Independent midwife Donna Ockenden identified a culture of blaming the mother There was a culture of this is your fault to the mother. If you hadn t done X your baby would have lived , she told MPs.
Sky News has been shown a letter that has been sent to all trusts in England, in which Ms Ockenden outlines the immediate actions required in order to improve safety of maternity services.