PRIME Minister Boris Johnson is set to unveil a new three-tier lockdown system with regions of England categorised as high, medium or low risk. 

It is understood the low risk 'Tier 1' will see current social distancing measures, the “rule of six” and a pub curfew of 10pm enforced. This will include areas with fewer than 20 new cases per 100,000. 

Areas in the medium risk 'Tier 2' will have the same restrictions plus a ban on households mixing. This will include areas with 20 to 50 new cases per 100,000. 

And in the high risk 'Tier 3', people will not be able to mix households and pubs, restaurants and other hospitality businesses will be shut. This will include areas with more than 50 new cases per 100,000. 

The announcement could be made as early as next week.

Using the average infection rate over seven days per 100,000 people, accurate to yesterday, here we look at the areas of Essex which are at highest risk of going into Tier 3. 

The first number is the rate given per 100,000 while the number in brackets is the number of new confirmed cases in the previous seven-day period. 

High risk

Basildon 62.0 (116) 

Medium risk

Castle Point 43.2 (39)

Southend 39.3 (72)

Thurrock 38.4 (67)

Rochford 20.6 (18)

It comes as medical leaders have expressed concern over the rising numbers of Covid-19 patients admitted to hospital.

Helen Stokes-Lampard, chairwoman of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, said the “indications are not looking good” as she urged people to stick to local lockdown measures.

She said the nation was at a “tipping point” and warned virus transmission could “get out of control”.

The former chairwoman of the Royal College of GPs said that as well as rising numbers of patients needing hospital admission, there is also an increase in those in need of intensive care.

Echo:

“We will be getting more data later today but all of the indications are not looking good,” she said.

“In the last month alone we have gone from a few hundred a people a day in hospital with coronavirus, to thousands.

“Right now we have got over 3,100 people in hospital with coronavirus around the UK.

“Actually 500 of those are in ITU beds. That’s really worrying.

“A month ago we only had 60 people in the whole of the UK in ITU beds. So we are seeing a very worrying trend at the moment.”

She added: “As the cases go up, a few weeks later hospital admissions do go up, a few weeks after that unfortunately intensive care [use] goes up and deaths go up.”

Professor Stokes-Lampard added: “This virus does not know boundaries and we need to learn its rules and work with it, rather than trying to expect it to conform to the way that we want to live.”

When asked if the NHS can cope, she said: “Right now the NHS can cope.

“There are a few hospitals really struggling but the NHS has learned a lot and is doing remarkably, at the same time as trying to restore services and clear as much of the backlog as we can from all those hundreds and thousands and possibly millions of people waiting for treatment.

“But if we are having to dedicate a much greater proportion of our resource to Covid care that means much less resource available for the other things we want to do.”