Millions face tighter Covid restrictions as cases rapidly rise in England

West Yorkshire has become the latest area of England to be placed into the highest level of Covid restrictions.

Under Tier 3 people will no longer be allowed to mix indoors or outdoors and businesses that don’t serve food will be forced to close.

The move comes as the pressure to put England into a national lockdown grows.

A study by Imperial College London suggests England’s R number has reached 1.6, with infections continuing to rise in every region.

It suggests as many as one in 40 people in Yorkshire and the Humber could have the virus.

But Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick says the government is doing everything it can to avoid a “blanket national lockdown”.

Some 24 million people in England now live in the “high alert” level, after 16 new areas were moved into Tier 2.

Meanwhile in Scotland, ministers are considering a full lockdown across Lanarkshire.

In today’s other developments, 23,065 people tested positive for Covid-19 in the last 24 hours. There were 280 deaths, bringing the total number of deaths to 45, 955.

With West Yorkshire now set to move into Tier 3 and millions more people in the West Midlands and Tees Valley expected to join them imminently, is the current localised approach working or sustainable?