Covid: Liverpool at ‘very high’ level in new tier system

The Liverpool City Region will be on a “very high” Covid alert level from Wednesday, Boris Johnson has announced.

Confirming a new three-tier lockdown system, the PM said pubs, bars and betting shops will close on Merseyside.

Most areas of England will be on “medium” alert, with measures like the rule of six, but areas with local restrictions on household mixing are automatically on “high” alert.

The PM said all retail outlets, schools and universities will remain open.

It came after England’s deputy chief medical officer, Prof Jonathan Van-Tam, said growth in Covid cases was a “nationwide phenomenon” and that “things are heating up” in areas beyond northern England.

Boris Johnson told MPs restricting interactions between people would save lives.

Speaking in the House of Commons, he said “This is not how we want to live our lives but this is the narrow path we have to tread between the social and economic trauma of a full lockdown and the massive human, and indeed, economic cost of an uncontained epidemic.”