What the next tier review happening tomorrow could mean for Greater Manchester

While Greater Manchester has remained in Tier 3 since lockdown ended at the start of December, millions of others have been plunged into the new, stricter Tier 4.

Large parts of the country were moved into the toughest lockdown restrictions from Boxing Day, with Matt Hancock saying the new coronavirus strain was spreading at a ‘dangerous rate’.

Around six million people were placed into Tier 4 from December 26th, with areas in the toughest tier seeing much stricter rules on social mixing and non-essential shops shutting their doors.

Greater Manchester continues to see infection rates much lower than the national average, although they are on the rise with nine out of ten boroughs seeing an increase on the latest figures.

Chemical Engineer / Wikimedia

According to the latest data, our region-wide infection rate looks like it’s set to top 200 cases per 100,000 people again – this is still significantly lower than the England-wide average of 392.1, though.

For the individual boroughs, Bury now has the highest rate (246.1, up 27%), while Trafford (242.7, up 60%), Stockport (209.3, up 75%) and Tameside (177, up 48%) saw large increases.

Several areas saw more marginal rises, including Rochdale (224.8, up 7%), Salford (223.7, up 33%), Manchester (202, up 16%), Wigan (181.9, up 10%) and Bolton (161, up 7%).

And the only borough to record a drop in cases was former hotspot Oldham, which saw a slight decrease in numbers – down 3% to 195.7 per 100,000 people.

Alan Murray-Rust / Geograph

The next tier review is set to take place tomorrow, Wednesday December 30th, although it remains to be seen if there’ll be much movement between the tiers – if any – with the new variant going around.

When the new tier system was introduced there were meant to be reviews every two weeks, but the government moved London into Tier 3 early as cases rose dramatically there, before introducing the new Tier 4 and plunging the capital and large parts of the South into it.

The Department of Health and Social Care said in a statement: “Exponential rises in cases in the south east and east of England necessitate decisive action ahead of the formal review on 30 December.”

The government considers five criteria when deciding which towns and cities should move tiers, and they are:

• Analysis of cases across all age groups
• Analysis of cases specifically among the over-60s
• Rate by which cases are rising or falling
• Percentage of those tested in local populations who are found to have Covid (e.g. cases per 100,000)
• Current and projected pressures on the NHS