Data Used To Justify Putting 38million People Into Tier 3 Were Published Today Amid Fears Of A New Year Shutdown As The UK s R Number Rose Above One Again And Boris Johnson Warned The Country Has To Recognise The reality Of The Coronavirus Threat

Data used to justify putting 38million people into Tier 3 were published today amid fears of a New Year shutdown as the UK's R number rose above one again and Boris Johnson warned the country has to recognise the 'reality' of the coronavirus threat.   
A series of charts were released by the Joint Biosecurity Centre (JBC), the secretive Whitehall organisation tasked with allocating the whack-a-mole-style lockdowns, after swathes of the South East were plunged into the strictest bracket yesterday as part of the first shake-up of the system since the national shutdown ended.
They highlight the North-South divide that has emerged since the country came out of lockdown on December 2, with London and the home counties now bearing the brunt of the winter wave and the epidemic fizzling out in Tier 3 northern areas.
A sea of green - representing shrinking outbreaks - has emerged in the former hotspot regions of the North East and Yorkshire since the national intervention was lifted, with infections now concentrated in and around London and its commuter belt. 
From tomorrow 70 per cent of England will be living under the toughest[/news/coronavirus-lockdowns/index.html  ]restrictions, despite significant disparities in case rates between rural and urban areas within counties, and there is now the looming threat of a third crude lockdown in the new year.
It comes as the Department of Health recorded 28,507 new cases of the virus in the last 24 hours, up a third from the 21,672 last Friday, and 489 deaths, a rise of 14 per cent from a week ago.
Meanwhile, SAGE now estimates the Covid R rate - the average number of others infected by each person with the disease - is between 1.1 and 1.2 in the UK.

It is the first time the reproductive number has definitely been above the crucial mark since the first week of the national lockdown last month.
In England the rate stands even higher at between 1.1 and 1.3, while experts warned it might be as high as 1.4 in the East, and 1.3 in both London and the South East. Last week, Britain's R number - which doesn't represent today's outbreak - was between 0.9 and 1.
Grilled by reporters on a visit to Bolton today, Mr Johnson refused to rule out another blanket lockdown in England - similar to those already announced for Wales and Northern Ireland - even though 38million people are already facing the toughest Tier 3 curbs. 
Any escalation could potentially mean the order to stay at home being reinstated, and haircut; tinyurl.com, non-essential shops forced to shut.  Asked about the prospect of a new lockdown on a visit to Bolton, Mr Johnson said: 'We're hoping very much that we will be able to avoid anything like that.

'But the reality is that the rates of infection have increased very much in the last few weeks.'
The increasingly dire situation raised further questions about the decision to press ahead with Christmas 'bubbles', which mean three households can mix freely between December 23 and 27.
Mr Johnson urged people to do the minimum possible of socialising.
However, Labour leader Keir Starmer today demanded that the premier takes immediate action to avert disaster by cutting the limit to two households. 'What are you doing now to prevent a third lockdown?' he said. 
NHS chiefs have warned that hospitals are already creaking under the strain, with fears of a 'tsunami' of patients in January. But MailOnline's analysis of NHS data today revealed that hospitals are still quieter than they were this time last year, and intensive care units have more room than they did last December. 








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NHS data shows that wards are less full than they were at the same time last year, but doctors say there are invisible coronavirus pressures that don't show through in this data

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<div class="art-ins mol-factbox news halfRHS" data-version="2" id="mol-ed987350-4137-11eb-980e-19302749d039" website Covid-19 R rate rises ABOVE crucial level of one