Talk:First COVID-19 tier regulations in England

Presentation of Georgraphical Areas

As the geographical areas are going to change with areas moving from high to very high and back I wonder whether the current presentation is most suited or whether a table more akin to that which has been used for the international travel restrictions would be more suitable.

Something along the lines of (using South Yorkshire and West Midlands as an example)

Areas by tier

County	Area	In Tier 1	In Tier 2	In Tier 3
All of England, apart from the areas in tiers 2 and 3		14 October 2020 - present
South Yorkshire	Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham, Sheffield		14 October 2020 - 23 October 2020 [REF]	24 October 2020 - present [REF]
West Midlands	Birmingham, Sandwell, Solihull, Wolverhampton, Walsall		14 October 2020 - present [REF]
	Coventry		24 October 2020 - present [REF]

Tracland (talk) sometime on 23 October 2020 (UTC) (I forgot entirely to sign off this post)

Worth keeping under review, to see how things go, but I wouldn't do it just at the moment. The international travel restrictions approach requires a new line in the table for every addition and also for every removal. That's likely to get very complicated if (as I suspect) the gvt starts making changes that split up the existing blocks of areas, with different rules applied to specific local council regions. There is a timeline summary box at the bottom of this page which should help to keep the dates straight. MichaelMaggs (talk) 10:12, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll leave it be for the time being but I think if there are significant further changes then the table int he current format is going to get difficult to follow for someone who wants to see where a particular area stands at a given point in time. If we did move to an alternative format then I'd anticipate it would look something like the table below (which includes all regulations to date, default ordering by date of entry into current tier). But happy to get views on how we can present this information in the best way.

County	Local council area	Current tier	Periods in Tier 1 (Medium)	Periods in Tier 2 (High)	Periods in Tier 3 (Very High)
All areas in England other than those in detailed in this table		Tier 1 (Medium)	14 October 2020 -	N/A	N/A
Cheshire	Cheshire East, Cheshire West, Chester, Warrington. Derbyshire: parts of High Peak	Tier 2 (High)	None	14 October 2020 -	None
Durham	Durham
Leicestershire	Leicester, Oadby and Wigston
Northumberland	Northumberland
Nottinghamshire	Ashfield, Bassetlaw, Broxtowe, Gedling, Mansfield, Newark & Sherwood, Nottingham, Rushcliffe
Tees Valley	Darlington, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland, Stockton-on-Tees
Tyne and Wear	Gateshead, Newcastle, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, Sunderland. West Midlands: Birmingham, Sandwell, Solihull, Wolverhampton, Walsall
West Yorkshire	Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds, Wakefield
Cumbria	Barrow-in-Furness		14 October 2020 - 17 October 2020	17 October 2020 -
Derbyshire	Chesterfield, Erewash, North East Derbyshire
Essex	Basildon, Braintree, Brentwood, Castle Point, Chelmsford, Colchester, Epping Forest, Harlow, Maldon, Rochford, Tendring, Uttlesford
Greater London	City of London, Barking and Dagenham, Barnet, Bexley, Brent, Bromley, Camden, Croydon, Ealing, Enfield, Greenwich, Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Haringey, Harrow, Havering, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Islington, Kensington and Chelsea, Kingston upon Thames, Lambeth, Lewisham, Merton, Newham, Redbridge, Richmond upon Thames, Southwark, Sutton, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest, Wandsworth, Westminster
North Yorkshire	York
Surrey	Elmbridge
Berkshire	Slough		14 October 2020 - 24 October 2020	24 October 2020 -
Staffordshire	Stoke-on-Trent
West Midlands	Coventry
Liverpool	Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, Sefton, St Helens, Wirral	Tier 3 (Very High)	None	None	17 October 2020 -
Lancashire	Blackpool, Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Chorley, Fylde, Hyndburn, Lancaster City Council, Pendle, Preston, Ribble Valley, Rossendale, South Ribble, West Lancashire, Wyre				17 October 2020 -
Greater Manchester	Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Wigan			14 October 2020 - 23 October 2020	23 October 2020 -
South Yorkshire	Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham, Sheffield			14 October 2020 - 24 October 2020	24 October 2020 -

Tracland (talk) sometime on 23 October 2020 (UTC) (I forgot entirely to sign off this post when I originally made it)

That might work for a short while, but would I think rapidly get very complicated if the government, to take a random example, brings in special rules for Harrow, Havering, Hillingdon, then drops down Harrow and Havering (only) to tier 2 and finally drops Harrow (only) back to tier 1. That would need multiple rows in the table, one for each separate London borough. Btw, don't forget to sign your posts with ~~~~ MichaelMaggs (talk) 14:42, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, agreed might get complicated. I think I'll leave it as is for the time being. However I do think there might be a better way to present which areas where at each point in time in a single section/table. Ultimately it is likely that an area will go from Tier 1 to Tier 2 to Tier 3 and all the way back again and it would be good to be able to see this in a single table for each area. But I'm really not sure how best this could be presented. I'll play with some alternatives and get consensus here before making any changes. (And I will sign off this statement)Tracland (talk) 17:10, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Current tiers and historical information

Hi Tracland, I've just undone an edit that mixes up the tables of current and historical information. Doing that will make things increasingly difficult for readers, as discussed above.

On this page, the table at Geographical areas within each tier is intended to show the current status of all areas, along with the date each of those areas was added to the current tier, as is stated in the text just above it. It should reflect the lastest SI amendments - currently SI 20290/1154. To stop that table getting hugely complicated, historical changes by date are shown separately in the table at the bottom, in the section entitled Main changes, by date. That table could be expanded with more detail if you think it's worth it (eg listing all changes at the local authority level).

Happy to discuss better ways of presenting the information, but ask that consensus is sought done here before any major changes are made to the page itself. MichaelMaggs (talk) 15:04, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

No problem, my fault. I hadn't picked up that this table was current status only and thought it was tracking the movements over time.Tracland (talk) 17:13, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Or (incorporating my thoughts in the above section) maybe split the section titled Geographical areas within each tier into two subsections, one being Current georgraphical areas within each tier which retains the structure of the current section and retains the existing table which is a really good summary of where every area is as at now and then include a second subsection titled History of geographical areas within each tier (or similar) which includes something similar to my table above. I think it would then make sense to dispense with the 'current position' column in my original proposal (as this would already be clear from the table in the current section) and to default to order alphabetically by county rather than by current tier. Individual boroughs can ten easily be split out from the county onto individual lines as an when restrictions apply to individual boroughs (this does not need to be capable of be sorted by borough as this would require a separate line for each borough, which would clearly be excessive) Let me know your thoughts.Tracland (talk) 17:38, 23 October 2020 (UTC)