Every area in England will today find out which tier of restrictions it will fall under when the national coronavirus lockdown ends.
Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham said he believes the region will be put under the highest level of measures, which will see the closure of all hospitality venues with only takeaway and delivery permitted.
The UK also recorded its highest daily death toll since the beginning of May yesterday, adding a further 696 coronavirus-related deaths to the total.
A NHS Nightingale hospital in Exeter is due to receive its first patients today, while Germany is preparing to extend its shutdown well into December amid rising case rates.
The latest headlines can be found below, and for live updates through the day you can follow our blog.
Local authorities to find out which tier they are in today
Every local authority in England will today find out which tier it will fall under after the national lockdown ends on December 2.
Health secretary Matt Hancock is expected to make the announcement in Parliament this morning, after the prime minister set out a strengthened tier system earlier this week.
Reports suggest there will be very few areas in England placed in Tier 1, with the majority of the country placed in Tier 2.
Areas placed in Tier 3 will be offered support from NHS Test and Trace and the Armed Forces to deliver a six-week rapid community testing programme, making use of rapid lateral flow tests which give results within an hour.
Areas which make progress in slowing the spread of the virus could still be moved down a tier before Christmas, however, with the first review of the allocations due to take place by December 16.
Mr Hancock said: “Thanks to the hard work and sacrifice made by people up and down the country, we are able to move out of national lockdown and into more targeted local, tiered restrictions.
“I know for those of you faced with Tier 3 restrictions this will be a particularly difficult time but I want to reassure you that we’ll be supporting your areas with mass community testing and extra funding.
“By following the rules together we can get out of these tough measures.”
The Department of Health said decisions on tier levels would be based on a number of factors, including case detection rates in all age groups and, in particular, amongst the over 60s.
How quickly case rates are rising or falling will also be taken into account, as will local pressure on the NHS, including current and projected capacity.
Greater Manchester will 'more likely than not' be put in Tier 3
Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham said it was “more likely than not” the region would be made subject to Tier 3 restrictions.
He said although infection numbers in Greater Manchester are still high, the rates are falling.
He told a weekly press briefing: “We have certainly made the argument that it’s a very different picture if you have high numbers on a rapidly falling trend than slightly lower numbers on a rapidly rising trend.
“That said I think it’s more likely than not that the government will put us in Tier 3 given the statements that ministers have made about the majority of [regions] being disappointed and practically nobody being in Tier 1.
"I think they’re giving a quite clear street that they’re going to err on the side of caution.
“But if [the drop in infection rates] continue in this direction at the rate at which we’re seeing, I would want to ask the government for a serious review of Greater Manchester’s position."
Two boroughs, Trafford and Stockport, now have a lower transmission rate than the national average, while the rate in Oldham, which is still the worst affected area in the region, has fallen below 400 for the first time since October 14.
The average rate for England now stands at 208.7 and for all of Greater Manchester 276.48.
UK records highest daily death toll since start of May
The UK has recorded its highest daily coronavirus death toll since the beginning of May, official data shows.
A further 696 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Wednesday, according to the Government’s coronavirus dashboard.
This is the highest daily total since 726 deaths were reported on May 5 – but a mid-week rise can be due to delays in reporting deaths over the weekend.
These figures are not the number of people who have died in a single day but the number of deaths reported in the past 24 hours.
The latest data brings the UK’s total number of people to have died within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test to 56,533.
This cumulative total is one less than expected due to the removal of a previously reported duplicate death by Public Health Wales.
Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies for deaths where Covid-19 has been mentioned on the death certificate, together with additional data on deaths that have occurred in recent days, show there have now been 72,000 deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK.
The government said that, as of 9am on Wednesday, there had been a further 18,213 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK, bringing the total number of cases in the UK to 1,557,007.
Exeter Nightingale hospital to receive first coronavirus patients today
The Nightingale Hospital in Exeter will receive its first coronavirus patients on Thursday, officials have confirmed.
The 116-bed hospital built on the site of a former retail unit will treat people with Covid-19, taking patients transferred from the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust as it is “very busy”.
A Nightingale Hospital Exeter spokeswoman said: “The Nightingale Exeter will accept patients tomorrow who will be transferred from the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust (RD&E), which is very busy.
“We would ask that the public continue to observe the Government’s advice on observing the lockdown and social distancing so that we can keep patients safe.”
Responding to the news, Exeter MP Ben Bradshaw tweeted: “Very good news that the Exeter Nightingale hospital is finally opening for patients tomorrow to take pressure off the RD&E hospitals and other local NHS services to cope with unprecedented Covid-19 UK pressures.”
In his response on Twitter, the Labour MP noted he had recently raised the issue with Health Secretary Matt Hancock.
Speaking virtually in the Commons on November 10, Mr Bradshaw told the Health Secretary his local NHS wanted to use the hospital, but did not then have the staff to do so.
He asked: “What exactly is the purpose of the Nightingale hospitals when there are not the doctors and nurses to staff them?”
Mr Hancock replied there had been an increase of more than 13,000 nurses in the past year, as well as returning members of NHS staff.
He added: “The Nightingale hospitals are incredibly important as additional surge capacity, but part of that surge involves the staff in the NHS having themselves each to look after a higher proportion of patients. That surge is not something we want to put in place unless we have to, so having the Nightingales there is important.”
Germany to extend lockdown into December
Germany has announced its partial shutdown will extend well into December as part of efforts to further reduce the rate of Covid-19 infections before Christmas.
The country embarked on a so-called “wave-breaker” shutdown on November 2, shutting restaurants, bars, sports and leisure facilities but leaving schools, shops and hair salons open. It was initially slated to last four weeks.
Chancellor Angela Merkel said the measures will now be extended until December 20, with a goal of pushing the regional number of new cases per week below 50 per 100,000 inhabitants.
“I remain convinced that we have to continue to pursue this goal,” she told reporters in Berlin.
One major new restriction stipulates that only up to five people from two households – not including young children – can meet, except over the Christmas period when the number will be increased to 10.
Mrs Merkel said that existing measures have succeeded in halting an upward surge in new coronavirus infections — though they have stabilised at a high level, rather than sinking back to levels at which authorities feel contact-tracing efforts can be successful.
“We can’t be satisfied with this partial success,” she said.
Mrs Merkel noted that Germany’s disease control agency, the Robert Koch Institute, reported 410 deaths linked to Covid-19, the highest single-day total yet.
“(This) reminds us in the saddest way that behind the statistics are human fates,” she said.
The Robert Koch Institute also reported 18,633 new cases over the past 24 hours — compared with 17,561 a week earlier.
