The Government announced that when the lockdown ends, Gloucestershire will be entering Tier 2 (High Alert). Please see the graphic for details on what Tier 2 will mean for Stroud.
Whilst I am disappointed that Stroud will be in Tier 2 and there are more questions to ask about how we get into Tier 1, I am glad that businesses across Stroud will be able to reopen. As you know I had been fighting for us to return to a Tiering system after the lockdown ends on 2nd December and for a county approach rather than being Tiered with the whole of the south west, but I naturally had hoped we would have been in Tier 1. You may have seen that only a few areas are actually Tier 1.
Unfortunately we were heading to Tier 2 before the national lockdown and while cases are now steady, winter is likely to see cases continuing to rise in the county. This meant we will begin the post lockdown phase in Tier 2.
I know many of you will have questions about how the Tiers were decided. Decisions are made based on countywide data, looking at the amount of cases in each county, including the rate for over 60s as well as whether there was an increase or decrease in the amount of cases. Case rates in Gloucestershire for the last week were 162/100,000. The case rate in the over 60s is currently 92/100,000. In the last 7 days there have been 1,031 confirmed cases of Covid, a 6 % increase in Covid cases and 8 community outbreaks. On 24th November there were 154 inpatients in the Gloucestershire NHS Trust, with an average of 12 new Covid hopsital admissions per day between 16th and 22nd of November.
The Tiering system will be reviewed fortnightly (next review by 16th December). We have been told that if cases start to fall across Gloucestershire we could go into Tier 1. I personally think the government has to do more to provide clarity on this though and more information. I have made that case privately and on national television this week.
If you have any questions please do email my office on Siobhan.baillie.mp@parliament.uk and myself or my team will get back to you as soon as we can.