Full list of areas going into Tier 3 from tonight including parts of the South West, Liverpool and Dorset

MILLIONS of people will be plunged into Tier 3 restrictions from tonight as Britain grapples with the new mutant Covid strain. Matt Hancock today revealed a swathes of the country were moving to the second-toughest restrictions to tackle rising Covid cases. The rules mean all shops can stay open and people can meet outdoors in […]

MILLIONS of people will be plunged into Tier 3 restrictions from tonight as Britain grapples with the new mutant Covid strain.

Matt Hancock today revealed a swathes of the country were moving to the second-toughest restrictions to tackle rising Covid cases.

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Matt Hancock has placed a huge part of the country under stricter coronavirus measures[/caption]

The rules mean all shops can stay open and people can meet outdoors in groups of up to six.

But pubs and restaurants must close except for delivery and takeaway service.

Among those moving into Tier 3 from midnight is Liverpool, which was the only part of the country to move down a tier after November’s lockdown.

York, which has seen infection rates double in a week, has also been moved up a tier.

A large part of the South West – including Devon and Plymouth, has also been plunged under Tier 3 rules.

This includes Cornwall, which was originally placed in Tier 1 when lockdown lifted on December 2.

It comes as three-quarters of England will now be plunged into draconian Tier 4 rules from tonight – including all of the North East of England.

There were already 24.1million people living in the UK under the toughest restrictions, with shops, indoor activities, gyms and hairdressers shut.

Today’s announcement means all of England is living under Tier 3 or Tier 4 lockdown – apart from 2,000 people living on the Isles of Scilly in Tier 1.

Hancock confirmed he would not be introducing a dreaded Tier 5 today – although he didn’t rule it out in the future.

The decision comes amid fears the NHS is at breaking point with a major incident declared today in Essex as Covid patients threaten to overwhelm hospitals.

Patients are now being treated in the back of ambulances and tents usually reserved for terror attacks are being set up to tackle the chaos.

And health authorities are warning NHS workers are facing having to make the “horrendous” life and death choice over which patients will be able to access ventilation if cases continue to soar.

Hospitals are now on the brink of being overwhelmed as the super-infectious mutant variant of coronavirus rips through the capital and the South East of England.

Hancock today revealed the majority of Brits who have tested positive for the disease have the new strain of the virus.

 

He told Radio 4: “The ‘suppress the virus’ bit has got a whole lot harder since the new variant really got going over December

“Now the majority of the new cases in the UK are the new variant. It is much, much easier to transmit from one person to another.

“So, the challenge of suppressing the virus has got harder, but thankfully, the cavalry has arrived in terms of not one but two vaccines, and we’ve got to get them into people’s arms as quickly as they’re produced.”

According to Public Health England, people with the mutant variant are 54 per cent more likely to pass it on to others.

But the strain does not appear to cause worse symptoms or more deaths.

Hancock gave a glimmer of hope this morning as it was announced Oxford University’s Covid vaccine would be rolled out to Brits from Monday.

He said the new jab will help Britain out of the pandemic by spring with 100million doses of the vaccine ordered.

Along with the 30 million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine, Britain now has enough doses ordered to vaccinate the entire population, Hancock said.

He added: “I am now, with this approval this morning, highly confident that we can get enough vulnerable people vaccinated by the spring that we can now see the route out of this pandemic.

“The vaccine provides that route out. We have all just got to hold our nerve over the weeks to come.”

But a doom-monger government advisor has warned there could be “tens of thousands” of deaths if the UK doesn’t tighten its Covid restrictions.

Sage expert Professor Andrew Hayward told BBC Breakfast: “I think we’re really facing a very stark choice between many tens of thousands of avoidable deaths despite the vaccine or tighter restrictions across the country that will damage our economy.

“I think the scale of the threat that we face means that we really will need to tighten across the country and I would expect that to be the decision today.”

He said it was “early days yet” to see whether Tier 4 restrictions in England had helped control the spread of the virus.

It comes after UK has recorded 53,135 coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours in the biggest rise yet.

There were 414 more deaths recorded yesterday, taking the grim total to 71,567, as hospital admissions go well past the April peak.

Surging cases in London and the South East, are being blamed on the new mutant Covid strain.