Downing Street has no plans to return to a Covid-19 tier system despite cases “clearly rising”, a minister has said.
Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick said instead of returning to last year’s regional tiered approach, the “best way forward” would be to replicate targeted action in Bolton.
It comes as coronavirus cases in the UK almost doubled within a week as the nation continues to battle against the Indian variant.
A further 6,048 coronavirus cases and 13 further deaths within 28 days of a positive test were reported in the UK on Tuesday, according to official data.
“We don’t have any plan to return to the regional or the tiered approach that we saw last autumn,” Mr Jenrick told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“What we want to do is provide as much support as we possibly can to a local community and to work as closely as we can with the local leaders.
“We have seen in Bolton that that approach has worked. It did require a lot of effort and Bolton Council has been brilliant, the NHS there, local people above all have been extremely helpful and effective in combating it.
“So that approach, of going door to door with testing, doing the surge testing, doing the vaccine buses, getting everybody out to be vaccinated, has worked there.
“If we can replicate that in other places where you see similarly concerning rises in the number of cases, then that is the best way forward.”
Ministers are weighing up whether to lift remaining coronavirus lockdown restrictions on June 21 as planned.
Reports suggest the lifting of further restrictions could be delayed by two weeks or a month.
It is understood Chancellor Rishi Sunak was willing to accept a short delay amid a rise in cases.
But Tory lockdown-sceptic Sir Charles Walker has warned the Prime Minister Boris Johnson against delay.
The vice chairman of the 1922 Committee of Conservative MPs told BBC Newsnight: “There will be a huge wave of disappointment across the country if we don’t open up on June 21.
Read More
“The delay could be two weeks, a month, but I think the real issue here is if we can’t open up the economy at the height of summer then I think we are facing the very real prospect of more forced lockdowns in the autumn. I just don’t see how we can avoid that.
“The goalposts - as we’ve always said, it’s a well-worn cliche - are moving.”
People over 25 in England are now being offered offered a first dose of a coronavirus vaccine six months after the first jab was administered in the UK.
NHS Providers has said that hospitals in Covid hotspots are coping with current levels of infection and are seeing a “significantly” lower death rate among people admitted for treatment.
