covid North East England
New lockdown measures will come into effect in North East England from Friday 17th. These measures include pub curfews and banning meetings with those outside your household.
At 11:30am in the House of Commons today the Health Minister, Matt Hancock made the official announcement about the stricter lockdown measures in North East England.
The new measures have been put into place as a result of major increases in Covid positive tests in North East England.
Speaking on the matter Nick Forbes, chair of Newcastle City Council, said:
“There is universal concern from council leaders across our region about the exponential rise in Covid cases over the last week. Unless we get on with this now, we are facing a bigger problem down the line which could end up in a full lockdown. It is better to try to introduce measures which will prevent that, even though that may mean some additional restrictions over the next few weeks.
We are working with the government on a plan for what those could mean and how we can get those measures in place over the next few weeks to protect our communities and having to go into another prolonged, damaging lockdown.”
The areas included are Newcastle, Sunderland, Northumberland, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, County Durham and Gateshead. Edward Argar, Health Minister, said that the local councils had requested “additional measures”. It is believed that councils have asked for additional funding from the government in order to improve testing capacity immediately and to support businesses affected by new measures.
10pm curfews are set to impact all licensed premises and there must be no mixing of households, the exception being for childcare provisions. The rule of six still also applies on top of all of these additional restrictions.
A new Lighthouse Lab is also set to be built in the region, something mentioned by Boris Johnson briefly during yesterday’s Prime Minister’s Questions. This could bring jobs as well as an increased testing capacity to the area.
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