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Thousands of Nottinghamshire businesses are gearing up to face the toughest, tier 3 level of lockdown restrictions this week.

Nottingham city, Gedling, Broxtowe and Rushcliffe will enter the highest category in the coming days, following crunch talks with the Government.

Broxtowe Borough Council leader Coun Milan Radulovic confirmed to Nottinghamshire Live the areas will now enter the 'very high' category.

He said there will be a 28-day Tier 3 lockdown, implemented at midnight on Wednesday / Thursday morning (October 29).

He said they have agreed a financial package but more details will come out on Tuesday.

Local leaders in Gedling and MPs in the city had accused the Government of poor communication over the potential tighter restrictions.

Discussions between central Government and local political leaders about the level of financial support for businesses hit hardest continued on Monday.

Tier 3 will see the closure of pubs and bars that don鈥檛 serve food, while households will be banned from mixing indoors or in private gardens and beer gardens.

People living in 鈥渧ery high鈥� alert levels can still travel to venues or amenities which are open, as well as for work, or education, but are being urged to cut journeys where possible.

Betting shops, casinos and soft play centres have been forced to close in other areas where Tier 3 restrictions have been imposed.

Over the weekend, South Yorkshire became the latest region to come under the highest tier of controls following Liverpool City Region, Greater Manchester and Lancashire.

Coun Radulovic said: "I think it is the right decision and the right decision is to balance the need of the local economy for shops and businesses to function but drive down the number of infections among the 60 plus and protect the NHS being overwhelmed."

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said areas would have to prove that their infection rate was coming down, especially among those aged 60 or over, before they could be removed from the strictest measures.

He has also refused to rule out bringing in a tougher set of Tier 4 restrictions to tackle England鈥檚 rise in infections.

Asked about the criteria for an area to exit Tier 3, Mr Hancock told Radio 4鈥檚 Today programme: 鈥淭he first thing that鈥檚 most important is that the case rate has to be coming down, and in particular we look at the number of cases amongst the over-60s because that鈥檚 the number that is likely to translate into hospital admissions and sadly into deaths.鈥�

Mr Hancock also suggested a vaccine would not provide an escape route from the social restrictions until next year.

Asked if a vaccine could be rolled out this year, he said: 鈥淲ell, I don鈥檛 rule that out, but that is not my central expectation.

鈥淭he vaccine programme is progressing well.

鈥淭he leading candidates we鈥檙e in very close contact with.

鈥淥n my central expectation, I would expect the bulk of the roll-out to be in the first half of next year.鈥�

The Government said a further 151 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Sunday, bringing the 海角视频 total to 44,896, and there had been a further 19,790 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus, bringing the total number in the 海角视频 to 873,800.

Amid the talks between councils and Government about escalating the tier levels in England, the Government has faced increasing criticism that the NHS Test and Trace service, which was supposed to be the key to controlling the disease, is failing.

Senior Conservative MP Sir Bernard Jenkin issued a call at the weekend for Dido Harding, the head of the organisation, to be sacked and replaced by a military commander.

He was backed by Labour which said that Lady Harding鈥檚 position had become 鈥渦ntenable鈥� after the latest weekly figures showed fewer than 60 per cent of the contacts of people testing positive for Covid-19 had been traced and told to self-isolate.

But Mr Hancock came to the Test and Trace tsar鈥檚 defence, telling BBC Breakfast she was the right person for the job.