The county's public health chief has urged people to follow Tier 4 rules or Oxfordshire will face a 'deeply deteriorating' Covid situation in January.

Ansaf Azhar, Oxfordshire's Director of Public Health, said: "We have had some good news with the new Oxford vaccine being approved and we know that a number of people in Oxfordshire have now begun the process of being vaccinated.

"However we cannot allow this to tempt us in to relaxing – we still have tough winter weeks ahead of us before the vaccines will start to have an impact."

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He said the new variant of Covid-19 spreads 'extremely quickly' and the numbers of cases across the county have risen 'very steeply' with also 'sharp rises' in hospital admissions.

The latest figures, for the seven days to December 25, show cases across the county have increased by 27 per cent to 2,126, with rises seen across all districts.

This is up from 1,672 cases the week before.

Oxford Mail:

The weekly rate currently stands at 338.2 cases per 100,000 people.

The rise is also seen among people aged over 60 in all parts of the county.

Recent Covid hospital figures show as of December 23 there were 135 patients at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust with the virus.

Mr Azhar said: "Viruses always thrive in winter and we can clearly see how aggressively Covid-19 can spread if we let our guard down even marginally.

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"We have seen during 2020 the damage that this virus can do when people are in close contact with each other.

"The new variant is significantly more transmissible and is becoming the dominant strain across the country – more places have now joined Oxfordshire and our neighbouring areas in Tier 4."

Tier 4 is the highest alert level in the national four-tier system, and it means people must stay at home, except for limited reasons.

These include essential work that cannot be done from home, buying food, taking exercise, or getting medical treatment.

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In Tier 4, you cannot meet other people socially indoors, unless you live with them or are part of a support bubble.

Mr Azhar said: "Unless we all take personal responsibility as individuals and families in the early weeks of 2021, we will create a deeply deteriorating situation in January.

"This means putting even more pressure on our NHS at its busiest time of year.

"I continue to urge everyone to adhere to the new Tier 4 rules and to take every single precaution.

"We need to protect ourselves, our communities, our families, and our work colleagues in the coming weeks before the vaccine is widely enough in circulation to begin to have an effect. Please do not let your guard slip."

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