North Devon MP, Selaine Saxby said of the move into Tier 3:
I very much reiterate the position of our Director of Public Health, Steve Brown, who said “Cases in Devon, while we have been in Tier 2, have been rising in all age groups, as per the national trend. Without further intervention with tighter restrictions, we are likely to have seen cases continuing to rise and therefore I feel this announcement was inevitable. The decision has been made to place us into Tier 3 and what is important now is we do everything we can to adhere to these tighter restrictions to help bring down cases in Devon.”
Having been in health briefings this afternoon, it is clear that the situation is serious with the new variant and deteriorating rapidly and cases in North Devon per 100,000 are amongst the highest in Devon, and in the past week some wards the highest in the whole south west of England. Whilst recognising how difficult this is for our beleaguered hospitality and tourism businesses, New Year’s Eve was potentially a time where people would be tempted to breach regulations, and households mix, as we have unfortunately seen increasingly here in Devon, and I suspect this has also influenced the timing and speed of the implementation of Tier 3.
It has been clear in the last few days that a lockdown or tighter restrictions were imminent and taking this difficult and swift decision now will help us build back better, stronger and sooner as we see the vaccine rolling out across the country.
My office and I will continue to help residents and businesses as far as possible at this difficult time and are working over the New Year period.