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THREAD: Lots of people are asking me whether Gloucestershire will move up to Tier 3. So here's my thoughts... Remember, the Government is making a decision today with an announcement expected tomorrow morning (although it might be leaked before then) 1/13
The Government has FIVE criteria for deciding which tier an area is in. I'll run through all of them below 2/13
Infection rates in all age groupsThis is not looking good. Cases are going in the wrong direction with rising infection rates in every part of Gloucestershire 3/13
<Dark blue is bad, purple is very bad >
High rates in Gloucester would risk the city being in Tier 3 if tiers were done by district, but they're not and we're not expecting them to be. High numbers in the Forest are being attributed to outbreaks in care homes 4/13
High rates in Gloucester would risk the city being in Tier 3 if tiers were done by district, but they're not and we're not expecting them to be. High numbers in the Forest are being attributed to outbreaks in care homes 4/13
The County Council has identified a hotspot in the Barton and Tredworth areas of Gloucester and is working with local mosques and community leaders to get public health messaging out. We could see mass testing here in the New Year 5/13
So yes Gloucester and Forest rates are high, but if you look at Gloucestershire as a whole, the infection rate remains lower than the England average at 135 cases per 100k people. For comparison, Tier 3 areas have much higher infection rates (400-700 cases per 100k people) 6/13
Infection rates among the over 60sThis is a bit more positive. Cases in the elderly population have dropped in every district in the seven days to December 9th (this is the most up to date data we have so may have changed this week) 7/13
How quickly case rates are rising or fallingMore bad news because they've risen by 45% in Gloucestershire in 7 days. But case rate for the county is slightly lower than when we were put in Tier 2 a fortnight ago & the rise isn't as bad as London and areas of South East 8/13
The number of positive cases relative to the number of total testsPositivity rates are decreasing in every district of Gloucestershire - currently around 4% of all tests are positive. For comparison, Tier 3 areas have positivity rates over 10% 9/13
Local pressure on the NHSThis is the important bit. We know Gloucestershire's two main hospitals are under considerable pressure with 189 covid patients. That's 30% higher than during the peak of the virus in April when there were 148 patients 10/13
The number of patients in our hospitals continues to rise despite the November lockdown & the situation isn't showing signs of improving. The good news is there is less pressure on the Intensive Care Unit with 6 patients in critical care compared to more than 30 in April 11/13
So what does all this mean? Well I'm not going to call it but I will say that from the data there's absolutely no way Gloucestershire will move down to Tier 1. Our figures are bad, but not as bad as areas that have been put into Tier 3 already this week 12/13
The expectation locally is that Gloucestershire will stay in Tier 2 but that's not to say it's absolutely guaranteed. We may know the criteria, but we don't know how the government is going to apply it 13/13
