South Yorkshire to be placed in Tier 3 coronavirus restrictions

South Yorkshire will be the latest region placed into Tier 3 coronavirus (Covid-19) restrictions.

Sheffield City Region mayor Dan Jarvis said the restrictions will come into force on the morning of Saturday 24 October. They’ll cover around 1.4 million people in Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield. The government will give the region a £41m support package.

With the number of people in hospital with coronavirus having doubled over the past 10 days, Jarvis said that leaders had to take the decision. He said:

We all recognise the gravity of the situation and have taken the responsible route to ensure we save lives and livelihoods, and protect our NHS. Inaction was not an option

Following the rules

Jarvis said that if the measures were effective, individual authorities would be able to move to lower alert levels as soon as it was safe to do so.

However, he said that to reach that situation as quickly as possible it was “critical” that people followed the new rules. He said:

Our NHS staff have worked tirelessly throughout this pandemic to keep us all safe. We owe it to them to ease the pressure ahead of the toughest winter our health service will ever face. I know people will step up and do their bit.