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6 January 2021
 Plymouth residents are being urged to stay at home following the introduction of a national lockdown.
The measures mean that from now everyone should stay at home, with the exception of specific reasons, such as essential shopping, to work if you cannot work from home, to exercise and to seek medical help.
Primary and secondary schools are moving to remote learning until February half term, except for vulnerable children and children of critical workers.
Shops selling non-essential goods have to close, apart from those providing click and collect services.
Anyone who is clinically extremely vulnerable is being advised to begin shielding again and will receive a letter explaining what they need to do.
Councillor Tudor Evans, Leader of the Council and chair of the Plymouth Local Outbreak Engagement Board, said: “I know people in Plymouth will get behind these latest national measures and do the right thing to save lives and protect the NHS.
“As a council, we will continue to do whatever we can to support Plymouth businesses and protect jobs, as well as support the most vulnerable in our community who are now being asked to shield. We will also not let up in lobbying the Government for the support that Plymouth businesses need to keep going and for schools to get the help they need to ensure the safety of their staff and pupils when they reopen.”
Ruth Harrell, Director of Public Health for Plymouth, said: “These new measures are necessary as there is an urgent need to get the spread of the virus under control. The new variant spreads even more easily and this has resulted in a rapid increase in cases in the South East.
“In Plymouth we have seen our rates increase again recently but we currently have a significantly lower rate of cases than many other parts of the country. This is likely to have changed without the measures that are being put in place. We must make the most of them to stop the virus spreading around our community."
 The rate of COVID-19 cases each week in Plymouth has been rising the beginning of December, as the graph above shows.
In Plymouth the rate per 100,000 people is currently 220.9 per 100,000 people. This compares to 591.6 for England and 342 for the South West.
The total number of confirmed cases in Plymouth since the start of the outbreak is 5,836.
There are weekly updates on the Position in Plymouth page on the Council's COVID-19 website and daily updates on its Facebook and Twitter pages.
The Council has pledged to do everything it can to keep day-to-day services running while ensuring the safety of staff and residents. Most services will be available as normal.
Additional support is being put in place again to ensure the safety of vulnerable residents and to support businesses by administering grant schemes.
Caring for Plymouth, the partnership between the Council, Livewell Southwest and a large number of voluntary and community sector organisations, is remobilising to help provide a vital lifeline for people who are clinically extremely vulnerable to COVID-19. Services will be focussed on people who do not have established support networks so that they can access emotional support, food, medicine and support with paying bills and accessing money.
The economic development team is looking at the implications of the latest announcement to help businesses, particularly the hard-hit hospitality sector, to get the latest grant support available.
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