🚨New lockdown regulations just published, in force tomorrow

The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (No. 3) and (All Tiers) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

https://t.co/L5jwlTDaIE

(Thread)

These are not a new set of regulations: they are amendments an old set of regulations

Which we thought were gone! But they are back

Welcome back No.3 regulations
A quick thing before we continue!

I have been analysing these laws for free for 9 months now - if you want to say thanks and have a few ÂŁ to spare please give to my @LawCentres fundraiser

They give free legal advice to people who need it most

https://t.co/NqjdiiAjqW
They also amend the All Tiers regulations

Oh god it's all amendments by paragraph references

Basically all of England now in Tier 4 and Tier 4 is amended but not by a huge amount

This really is a terrible way to make laws on the fly - who can possibly understand it?!
So, to explain, you need 2 documents open if you want to understand what is going on:

All Tiers regulations (Tiers 1-4, 2 December as amended) https://t.co/IraPQ112ak

And amendments https://t.co/L5jwlTDaIE

No sensible way of doing except by track changes, on it now, back soon
First thing to go is "open air recreation" which is what we suspected based on the guidance.

So this means that you can go out for exercise (or any other listed reasonable excuse) but not to recreate (is that the verb?).
Before I go on - this is going to sound a bit abstract unless I explain that the new "lockdown" is an amendment to the Tier 4 restrictions. Tier 4 was a lockdown but slightly less strict than March.

This is my thread on Tier 4 - perhaps read that first https://t.co/zkKiVO62cd
Some minor changes here to Exception 1 to being outside the home ("leaving home necessary for certain purposes").

Key point is the original reasons - work, voluntary services etc. etc. are still there

"public outdoor place" can't include sports grounds or facilities
Important to see that you still don't count a child under 5 or person with disability who needs continuous care when you are with someone from another household for exercise

Not in the guidance I think but maybe they don't want to publicise
Next change is to para 13 so the exceptions almost all stay in - see last thread https://t.co/DnXxk1DQfK
Paras 13 and 14 are about childcare. Some small but important changes:

I think it means that you can only provide informal childcare for "critical workers" in very limited circumstances

Tell me if I'm wrong
Children's outdoor sports gatherings removed as a reasonable excuse - we knew that from the guidance
Parents and child groups no longer permitted
What is important really is how similar this is to Tier 4:
- No open air recreation
- No parents and child groups
- More limited informal childcare options (I think)
- No children's sport or other outdoor sport such as tennis)
But otherwise its very similar
Elite sport and sport for people with disabilities is still permitted
Also well trailed in the announcements is the closure of outdoor sports facilities such as swimming, gyms, sports grounds
No alcohol takeaway
Have to pop off to eat, back later! That's basically it though, not much else changed from Tier 4
Oh, before I go, so as not to build tension, here's what's not in the law which is in the guidance :
- Time limit on outdoor exercise;
- Geographical limit on outdoor exercise
- Travel between areas.
I was indeed partly wrong on informal childcare, apologies https://t.co/s44qSsp88I
Charles has it here https://t.co/eY1P4nk7cD
I am going to wait until there is a consolidated version of the regulations to make a new video, hopefully tomorrow afternoon. I understand that the amended version of the regulations should be up tomorrow
All this remains in place https://t.co/5oaU0W3RjD
And this is still there https://t.co/ClJGeOkZwE
As is this - guidance has changed but not law re students https://t.co/vgsxo9nVvX
Communal worship still permitted https://t.co/94CtyjP41i
Linked households (bubbles) remain the same - exactly the same, people. Really important to get that https://t.co/VpcNmSAayM
One other error sorry - it is the carer of a person with a disability who needs continuous care who doesn’t ‘count’ for gatherings not the disabled person themselves https://t.co/Mpt5DLb0YX
The amendments have a sad little ending
Here is my unofficial and probably unreliable track changes version of the Tier 4 rules. Please don't rely on it, for illustrative purposes only! https://t.co/GmVC9GwjhN

More from Adam Wagner

A year ago, the idea that you could close every restaurant, cafĂŠ and pub in the capital without a Parliamentary vote or even a debate would have been unthinkable. Today we have allowed government by executive decree and it now seems normal. Covid lawmaking has corroded democracy

To explain: since March, the government has used the Public Health (Control of Diseases) Act 1984 to pass lockdown laws - over 60 (I have listed them here
https://t.co/5Z1p3gVjbX).


The lockdown laws have imposed stringent restrictions on movement, freedom of association, family life, religion etc. But each and every lockdown law passed has used the super emergency procedure which allows the government to pass them without a parliamentary vote for 28 days

The government did this for months before MPs revolted at which point it promised to put any major changes before parliament first. It has done this since the three tiers in mid-October.

BUT...

(1) The govt is still only giving parliament about 12 hours to consider laws and the vote is a simple yes or no

(2) Changes to tiered areas are not considered major changes so these don't go to a vote until 28 days later by which time it has usually changed.

More from Health

Now you know I love to sh-t in Harvard. But I also like accuracy. So I decided to go look at Harvard’s catalog to see its lack of military history that this article describes (they only teach history of pets it claims) and what I found shocked me! Shocked me! A thread: 1/


First off, Harvard students literally have multiple sections of military history that they can take listed. (It appears these ones are taught at MIT, so they might have to walk down the street for these) but... 2/


Say they want to stay on campus...they can only take numerous classes on war and diplomacy...3/


They have an entire class on Yalta. That’s right. An entire class on Yalta. 4/


But wait! There is more! They can take the British Empire, The Fall of the Roman Empire for those wanting traditional topics... 5/
Some thoughts on this: Firstly, it might be personal preference, but I am not keen on this kind of campaign as I feel like it trivialises cancer. Sometimes the serious message gets lost because people are sharing pics of cats or whatever and the important context is gone.


More importantly, the statistic being used in the campaign is misleading. It says 57% of women put off cervical screening if they can't get waxed. But on further investigation, that's not accurate.

The page here goes on to say "57% of women who regularly have their pubic hair professionally removed would put off attending their cervical screening appointment if they hadn’t been able to visit a beauty salon."

So the 57% represents a concern not across the whole population of women, but only those who regularly get waxed. So how big of an issue is this across the whole population? And what else is stopping people getting smears?

I think campaigns for cancer screening are really tricky because there is so much nuance that often doesn't fit into a catchy headline or hashtag. It's certainly not easy and is part of a bigger conversation.

You May Also Like