Four Herts districts moved to Tier 3 but Dacorum remains in Tier 2 for now

The leader of Herts County Council has spoken after four areas of the county were placed into the 'Very High' level (Tier 3) of Covid-19 restrictions.
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A statement from David Williams, leader of Hertfordshire County Council, has been sent to The Gazette after the government’s announcement that the districts of Broxbourne, Hertsmere, Three Rivers and Watford will move to Very High (Tier 3) of the Local COVID alert levels at 00:01 on Wednesday 16 December.

He said: “The Government has announced that four of the 10 district council areas in Hertfordshire (Broxbourne, Hertsmere, Three Rivers and Watford) will move to the ‘Very High’ level (Tier 3) of local COVID alert categories from 00:01 on Wednesday 16 December.

"The other six district council areas in Hertfordshire will remain at ‘High’ alert level (Tier 2) but will be included alongside all other areas in England as part of the Tier review planned for Wednesday 16 December.

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“We recognise the concerns that this escalation will prompt with both residents and businesses and the additional restrictions and tougher rules that this involves. The Government has taken this decision in response to the very significant increase in case numbers across the county and due to the proximity of these four district areas to north London and Essex where infection rates have also been growing significantly.

“In recent weeks we have been stressing the crucial importance of everyone in Hertfordshire following the rules and guidance around social contact and distancing, wearing face-coverings when required and washing your hands regularly. The message remains clear – we must all stay disciplined and stick to the guidance and rules if we are to improve the situation in Hertfordshire.

“We must all now redouble these efforts, particularly as we all plan for how we will follow the rules over the Christmas and New Year period including, the ‘Christmas bubble’ guidance. We must all keep playing our part to help reduce the number of cases in the county, so we can ultimately work towards returning to the type of lives we enjoyed before the pandemic.

“We are developing plans to significantly increase testing capacities across the county to try and identify more people who may be COVID-positive but asymptomatic and therefore inadvertently spreading the virus.

“We are also very pleased to see the start of the rollout of the vaccine; this is hugely significant in the battle to prevent the virus from circulating. However, we must not let our guard down and become complacent as a result of these developments.”