New lockdown rules for Calderdale: What are the new national lockdown rules, when does it start and how long will it be in place?

All of Calderdale and Yorkshire is abandoning the Tier system in favour of a new national lockdown.

What are the lockdown rules?

The new lockdown rules mean you should stay at home, apart from:

To shop only for essentials

to go to work if you 'absolutely cannot work from home'

to exercise

to seek medical assistance or a Covid test

to escape domestic abuse

Primary schools, secondary schools and colleges must move to online provision except for vulnerable children and children of key workers

When will the new lockdown start in Calderdale? When will lockdown end?

The lockdown will begin on Tuesday and will be in effect until February half term, so it is roughly six weeks.

The country will move to alert level 5, which means NHS capacity may well be overwhelmed in 21 days

The Prime Minister said the UK is now rolling out the 'biggest vaccination programme in our history', adding that the arrival of the UK's Oxford vaccine means the pace of vaccination is accelerating.

He said: "By the middle of February, we expect to have offered the first vaccine dose to everyone in the top four priority groups. That means all residents of a care home and their carers, everyone over the age of 70, all frontline health and social care workers and everyone clinically extremely vulnerable. If we succeed in vaccinating all those groups, we will have removed those people from the path of the virus.

There is a time lag between getting the jab and immunity and there is a further lag on the impact on the NHS. If the rollout of the vaccine programmes continue to be successful and if deaths start to fall as the vaccine takes effect, and if everyone plays their part.

"I know how tough this is and I know you have had more than enough of government guidance in beating this virus.

"You must once again stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives."

Why is Calderdale in lockdown, despite rates still being low compared to other areas?

The Prime Minister said that in England the number of Covid patients in hospitals has increased by nearly a third in the last week to almost 27,000 – some 40% higher than the first peak in April.

On December 29 “more than 80,000 people tested positive for Covid across the UK”, the number of deaths is up by 20% over the last week “and will sadly rise further”.

“With most of the country, or maybe under extreme measures, it’s clear that we need to do more together to bring this new variant under control while our vaccines are rolled out.

“In England we must therefore go into a national lockdown which is tough enough to contain this variant.”