Covid-19: Three tier alert system takes effect across England

Liverpool and neighbouring local authorities will become the first area of England to have new restrictions imposed under the new three tiered risk system designed to stem rising covid-19 infections across England, the government has announced.

Liverpool itself had 609 cases per 100 000 population on 13 October, a 14.3% rise over the previous week. Neighbouring Knowsley, included in the measures that apply to the Liverpool City Region, which also includes Halton, Sefton, St Helens, and Wirral, had 669.5 cases per 100 000. Liverpool has the steepest increase in covid-19 admissions to hospital in England, and the highest number, with more than 250 patients in beds at Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, around 15% of bed capacity.

In a memo seen by the Health Service Journal, Steve Warburton, chief executive of the trust, said that it was scaling back non-urgent operations to help cope with the surge.1 “We recognise that this will be distressing for patients whose elective care needs to be …