People in Liverpool are being advised by the city’s health chief to work from home, as the council looks to “let the pressure out” in the face of rising COVID cases.

It comes following the rise in the R number for England to between 1.0 and 1.2 and a week where the daily number of new COVID cases has been above 40,000 cases every day.

Ministers, including Health Secretary Sajid Javid and Prime Minister Boris Johnson have indicated that they think the best way to deal with the virus at the moment is through vaccination – including booster jabs.

But on Friday, the Liverpool Health Protection Board released guidelines for people in the city for how they should respond to coronavirus.

One point said: “Work from home if you can. We will work with employers to support a balanced approach to home-working when possible.”

Increased working from home is part of the government’s Plan B – which it has resisted moving towards – and also includes measures like mask wearing in crowded spaces.

The statement added that, as vaccine uptake is lower in Liverpool than the rest of England, the city is likely to see more people “becoming seriously ill with COVID”.

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Matthew Ashton is the director of public health in Liverpool, and chairs the health protection board.

He told Sky News: “For me this is like a pressure cooker, we have to find a way to let the pressure out of the system somehow, so anything that reduces the mixing without big impacts on jobs or the economy is a good thing.”

Mr Ashton added: “R is just above one, and to bring it below one, you need a few things to make a difference.

“One of them will be working from home – clearly we don’t have the powers to tell people to work at home, but where people can, we would advise it. This isn’t easy for everyone and we recognise that.

“My job is to help keep people in Liverpool safe and well, and we know from the last 20 months that the sooner we take action, the better the outcomes for people.

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“Winter is coming and it’s going to be hard, primary care and the acute sector are under immense pressure. This way, hopefully everyone takes a bit more responsibility for taking the pressure off.”

The health protection board is part of the council, but is non-political.

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