South Yorkshire waits for decision on Covid tier
The county was in Tier Three before lockdown
Last updated 26th Nov 2020
South Yorkshire will find out later whether it's going back into Tier Three restrictions from next week.
There'll be an announcement today about which areas face which rules when lockdown ends and the county returns to a tiered system.
There's more info on what each tier now means here.
Before the lockdown South Yorkshire was in Tier Three, the highest level, but Covid cases have dropped significantly since then.
We asked Sheffield's Director of Public Health Greg Fell whether the city will be in Tier Two or Three:
"Probably on the cusp of the two. You could call it either way - I genuinely don't know which way it will fall. It could fall on either side of the fence. Whichever side of the fence it is on, for me the critical thing remains the financial support package both for businesses and individuals.
"Tier One isn't probably potent enough or powerful enough to have much of an impact. Tier Two, with really really really effective testing for those who have got symptoms and all the things that follow that, like tracing and isolation, probably will have an impact. Tier Three will have an impact."
All four local authorities in South Yorkshire now have a weekly coronavirus 7 day average rate of below 300 per 100,000.
Sheffield, which was the worst affected in the county, now has the lowest of all four areas.
Greg says that's partly down to the Tier Three rules which were in place before the lockdown:
"There's no doubt that Tier Three has had an impact - you've seen that across all of the places that have had Tier Three in place: the North East, the North West, good proportions of Yorkshire and Humber have all had Tier Three in place and it's acheived the desired result, albeit with economic impact.
"Thus the nature of the economic support package is the critical bit in that one.
"Sheffield's rate is the third lowest in Yorkshire so credit to Sheffielders. I haven't made that happen, Sheffielders have made that happen by doing the right thing over a very long period of time. So that number's going down, the critical number for me is the incidence rate in the over 65s which is also going down."
The government's said it's not negotiating with local leaders in each areas over tiered restrictions this time, unlike before the lockdown.
Sheffield City Region Mayor Dan Jarvis says he doesn't know which level the county will be placed in:
"In part because of a herculean effort, we've reduced our numbers quite significantly although our NHS continues to be under quite severe pressure.
"Whatever tier we end up in after 2nd December it's incredibly important that we've got the support to move us out of it as quickly as we possibly can.
"I'm also acutely aware that these next few weeks are absolutely vital for so many of our businesses. That period ahead of Christmas is such an important period of time from a trading point of view.
"Crucially there needs to be the economic support that will give our businesses the best possible opportunity of surviving under these very challenging circumstances."
It's unclear whether South Yorkshire will be treated as one area again for the tiering system or split off into different council areas.
Dan tells us he thinks all four parts of the county should be treated together:
"Previously it was the case that we moved into the different tiers as one. I'm working on the assumption it'll be the same this time but we don't know for certain.
"In terms of our numbers, where the local authorities are, they're broadly in a similar position so I think it would be logical for us to all be in the same tier whilst at the same time retaining the flexibility for individual local authorities to come out at the earliest possible opportunity."