Tier 4 restrictions begin for millions of people across UK

Rules include staying at home for everything but essential travel and no indoor mixing, while gyms and hairdressers are closed

(PA)

Another six million people have woken up on Boxing Day to life under the harshest coronavirus restrictions after new changes came into force at midnight.

Some 43 per cent of England’s population – roughly 24 million people – are now in the strictest bracket, tier 4, following the discovery of an especially infectious variant of Covid-19 in the south-east earlier this month.

New lockdowns, meanwhile, have come into force in Scotland and Northern Ireland, while restrictions that were eased for Christmas Day in Wales have been re-imposed once again.

It all comes as the government said on Friday that a further 570 people have died following a positive coronavirus test taking the UK’s total death toll above 70,000.

Only the US, Brazil, India, Mexico and Italy have recorded more fatalities from Covid-19.

Areas moving up to tier four on Boxing Day were Sussex, Oxfordshire, Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire, parts of Essex not yet in the highest tier, Waverley in Surrey and Hampshire, with the exception of the New Forest.

They join vast swathes of the south and east which are already in the top bracket – including all of London, Kent, Buckinghamshire, Surrey and Bedfordshire.

Tier four restrictions include the requirement to stay at home for everything but essential travel, while all socialising is banned with the exception two single people meeting outdoors. Gyms and hairdressers are all closed.

The measures come on top of tier three restrictions such as the closure of non-essential shops as well as pubs and restaurants except for takeaways and deliveries.

Bristol, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Swindon, the Isle of Wight, the New Forest and Northamptonshire, as well as Cheshire and Warrington, have all been escalated from tier two to tier tree. Elsewhere, Cornwall and Herefordshire move from bracket one to two.

Mainland Scotland has also entered level four restrictions with the Scottish Government saying the measures will last for at least three weeks.

In Northern Ireland, tier four-style ruleswill also include an 8pm curfew, while non-essential retail will close for the next six weeks.