THE WHOLE county could see the same Covid-19 restrictions according to Cumbria’s health chief.

Director of Public Health Colin Cox expects Cumbria to see the same Covid-19 restrictions across the county as opposed to tiers for each district, he believes this to be the best course of action: “When the Tiering arrangements were first put in place we had a situation where Barrow had a rate more than three times higher than on the west coast so treating them the same didn’t make much sense.

"At the moment, however, there’s not a huge difference in the case rates between the districts so it makes sense for us to be in the same tier.”

Although the new tier arrangement is yet to be laid out by Government, Mr Cox expects Cumbria to see tier two style restrictions.

Tier 2 is currently the high alert level. Mr Cox said: “Barrow also has rates that have been falling on average since the middle of October, so they’ve been doing fantastically well.

There is concern for the Carlisle area however, the public health director said: “Carlisle currently has the highest rates in the County, and they’re not falling, so I am concerned about the situation there.

“While a lot of the numbers in Carlisle are accounted for by a significant outbreak that’s going on associated with Richard Rose Central Academy, there’s a real risk that that has a knock-on effect in the wider community so it’s even more important than ever that people in Carlisle follow the guidance and do self-isolate if they’re told to do so by track and trace staff – we need to work really hard to keep the virus contained in Carlisle.”

West Cumbria has seen a low number of cases with 139 confirmed cases in Allerdale and 84 in Copeland within the last seven days.

Mr Cox said: "The numbers in Copeland have been falling for about two weeks now so things are moving in the right direction. What we mustn’t do now is think it’s all over and start to relax our guard. People have been fantastic in supporting the efforts to get the rates down by following the guidance, and that’s the only way we can keep getting the numbers down."