England set for ‘three tier traffic light system lockdown’ if coronavirus cases keep rising

The Guardian reported that a three-tier lockdown is planned for England which may include the closure of pubs and a ban on all social contact outside household groups.

According to leaked Government documents seen by The Guardian, the proposals will simplify the existing localised restrictions.

The system would work in red, amber and green alerts with a red alert banning social contact with anyone outside your household and hospitality and leisure businesses closing.

A Government spokesman said: “We are seeing coronavirus cases rise at a rapid rate across the country and, given how serious this virus is, it is vital everyone plays their part by following the rule of six, washing their hands, practising social distancing and wearing a mask in enclosed spaces.

“As we have shown, we are prepared to take action decisively when it is necessary, and it is of course right to look how we make sure everyone understands and complies with the restrictions that will keep us all safe.”

A technical glitch which meant almost 16,000 Covid-19 cases went unreported has led to a delay in efforts to trace contacts of people who tested positive for the virus.

Public Health England (PHE) said a technical issue resulted in 15,841 cases between September 25 and October 2 being left out of the reported daily coronavirus cases.

Senior officials said the outstanding cases were transferred to NHS Test and Trace “immediately” after the issue was resolved and thanked contact tracers for their “additional efforts” over the weekend to clear the backlog.

All cases were passed on to tracers by 1am on Saturday, meaning potential delays of more than a week in contacting thousands of people who were exposed to the virus and telling them to self-isolate.

PHE said every single person who was tested initially had received their test result as normal, with all those testing positive told to self-isolate.

The technical issue – caused by some data files reporting positive test results exceeding the maximum file size – also means that daily totals reported on the Government’s coronavirus dashboard over the last week have been lower than the true number.

For example, 4,786 cases which were due to be reported on October 2 were not included in the daily total on the dashboard that day, when the figure was given as 6,968.

The Government’s dashboard said that, as of 9am on Sunday, there had been a further 22,961 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK, taking the total number of cases in the UK to 502,978.

A note on the dashboard said: “The cases by publish date for 3 and 4 October include 15,841 additional cases with specimen dates between 25 September and 2 October – they are therefore artificially high for England and the UK.”

Michael Brodie, interim chief executive at PHE, said the “technical issue” was identified overnight on Friday October 2 in the data load process that transfers Covid-19 positive lab results into reporting dashboards.