On Thursday, the Health Secretary announced that Bedfordshire would be moving into Tier 3 from Tier 2.
Commenting, Richard said: "The change to Tier 3 is disappointing for residents and local businesses.
"I had expected that the rates in rural areas would continue to decline but instead they are moving in the opposite direction with the number of weekly positive cases per 100,000 population in Central Bedfordshire increasing from 121 in the week up to 6 Dec, to 277 positive cases in the week up to 13th Dec. In Bedford Borough the numbers have increased from 132 positive cases to 263 cases in the same timeframe."
Following the statement, Richard asked Matt Hancock to publish data of projections of hospital bed occupancy rates and acute bed occupancy rates across the NHS and on a local hospital system basis so that people could fully understand the pressures that hospitals were under given that every winter hospital beds in the NHS are under pressure. Matt Hancock responded positively that this was something the Department of Health was trying to do and stressed his concern about the rise in numbers of cases in Bedfordshire, particularly in the rural areas.
For details of case numbers by local authority areas covered by North East Bedfordshire in the week to 13th December, please visit Bedford Borough and Central Bedfordshire Covid19 web pages.
Details of Tier 3 restrictions can be found here.
