Will West Berkshire go back to Tier 1 after lockdown?

That’s according to councillor Lynne Doherty, leader of West Berkshire Council, who said the government has assured the council that it wants to “reimplement local restrictions on December 2”.

Before the four-week national lockdown was imposed, West Berkshire was covered by medium alert (Tier 1) restrictions, which meant people from separate households could meet up and most businesses could remain open.

Cllr Doherty said she is “hopeful” that West Berkshire will return to those restrictions next month, but the council is keeping a close eye on case numbers.

READ MORE: Businesses shut by lockdown offered £3,000 grants

She said: “The local restrictions levels will be determined by the case numbers and epidemiological data. It will be the same criteria that we were looking at previously.

“We would still fall into the medium category (Tier 1) with our existing numbers, but obviously I can’t say what’s going to happen to those numbers in the next two weeks.

“I’m hopeful that when we come out of this, we’ll be able to return to the medium alert level, which means people can see their families.”

She said the government looks at case numbers, seven-day infection rates, infection rates among the over 60s and the percentage of tests that come back positive, when deciding which restrictions to impose on each area.

So far 1,263 people have tested positive for the virus in West Berkshire and 137 Covid-19 patients have died. Two of those deaths occurred in the last two weeks.

Revised figures show between October 27 and November 3, another 166 people tested positive for the virus in West Berkshire.

That took the district’s seven-day infection rate to 104.8 cases per 100,000 people.

'Cases are levelling out'

During that period, the infection rate among the over 60s in West Berkshire hit 97 cases per 100,000 people.

Matt Pearce, head of public health at West Berkshire said: “What we are starting to see with the cases is they are starting to plateau a little bit.

“There is some sign that the cases are levelling out.

“We are seeing anything between 15 and 30 cases each day and we’re hopeful that with the national restrictions in place, that will remain the case and hopefully reduce over time.”

His comments came at a meeting of West Berkshire Council’s Local Outbreak Control Board on November 9.

He said 11 schools, five care homes and two workplaces in West Berkshire have recorded confirmed cases or outbreaks since November 1.

READ MORE: Objector says gaming centre will aim to attract 'the low paid and people on benefits'

He also explained that 676 were being treated for the virus in hospitals across the South East on November 3 and 41 were on ventilators.

West Berkshire Council launched its own contract tracing service on November 5.

So far it has managed to contact 83 per cent of people who have tested positive for the virus and 71 per cent of their close contacts.

The local contract tracers look to contact people who have not been traced by the national scheme within 24 hours.

Sean Murphy, Public Protection Partnership manager, said: “There are some people who they were just not able to get hold of, they make three calls.

“I think people were maybe reluctant to answer at national level because the number wasn’t recognised as something local. People have views on telephone calls from unknown numbers.

“I think it’s also fair to say, just talking to officers, that there are people who perhaps don’t want to be contacted and who particularly don’t want to co-operate.”