Covid-19: More beauty businesses forced to close as areas move to Tier 4

Health secretary, Matt Hancock, has today (23 December) announced that more areas of England will move into Tier 4 on Boxing Day, forcing the closure of nail and beauty businesses.

The move comes as the reproduction rate  of coronavirus (‘R’) has risen to between 1.1 and 1.3, and new variants, including one from South Africa, are mutating rapidly.

Areas to be put into Tier 4 from 00.01 on Boxing Day 26 December are:

• Sussex
• Oxfordshire
• Suffolk
• Norfolk
• Cambridgeshire
• Parts of Essex not currently in Tier 4
• Hampshire (apart from the New Forest)
• Waverley in Surrey

Tier 4 areas are subject to former national lockdown rules, which include the closure of non-essential retail and personal care businesses – including hair, beauty and nail businesses.

Indoor leisure such as gyms and swimming pools will be shut, as well as indoor entertainment such as cinemas and bowling alleys. Other rules include working from home if you can and not entering or leaving Tier 4 areas or staying overnight away from home.

Hancock also announced areas that will move into Tier 3:

• Bristol
• Gloucestershire
• Somerset
• Swindon
• Isle of Wight
• The New Forest
• Northamptonshire
• Cheshire
• Warrington

Cornwall and Herefordshire move into Tier 2.

Nail and beauty businesses can continue to operate in Tier 2 and Tier 3 in a Covid-safe manner.

www.gov.uk/coronavirus