Has anyone yet managed to suss out, from Matt Hancock's press conference an hour ago, whether we in the Dales will be staying in Tier 2 rather than being raised to Tier 3?

Thanks.

Doesn't look like it. According to the Guardian live report: "Bristol, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Swindon, Isle of Wight, New Forest, Northamptonshire, Cheshire and Warrington will go into Tier 3, Hancock announced."

And that's confirmed by the Government page, which for once has done the helpful thing of indicating if an area is shortly going into a different tier (rather than simply telling you what tier you're in today)
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/full-list-of-local-restriction-tiers-by-area

Thanks Kay; like you I'd assumed that anything not announced should be staying the same.

You are assuming things don't get worse.  We now seem to be in a phase where changes are occurring every few days.  It would not surprise me that the government is keeping things quite as it can so as to avoid letting even worse news out such as every where moving to Tier 4 after Xmas as the other nations have done. 

Yes I am a glass half empty person and no, unfortunately due to the covid restrictions, you can't top my glass up, with or without a scotch egg.

Tier 2.....for the moment

This is quite a handy little map which seems to be kept very well up to date:

https://www.gbmaps.com/covidalertmap/index.php

Thanks all. Bob is right, obviously - but, for the present, it could have been worse.
I am of course sparing thoughts for those stuck in Tiers 3 and 4. It'll soon be 2021 and we should then at least start to see the light at the end of the tunnel getting a bit brighter. Never before have I longed so much for a year to end.

Not observing 'years' is probably more practical at the moment from a self-help perspective. Without wishing to be the bearer of bad news, I can guarantee that 1st January won't feel any better than 31st December, and then you'll have to start ticking down until the next one. I know administration is easier to organise by year, but our personal lives and responses to events probably need not be so rigid. That's how I deal with it, but then I've always disliked 'New Year' as a concept, more even than Christmas. It would be far better having it on the Spring Equinox - then it would actually feel like a new year, with daffodils and crocuses, rather than some bargain-bucket refried xmas with even more booze and some bad snogging in the rain. Maybe not this time

Anyway, from Tier 3 - it's not so bad for me, just really really boring. And I found another used needle on my back doorstep this morning

As an indication of where things might go next, the paper below estimates that the new variant virus is 54% more transmissible and a November style lock down will not contain it without shutting schools etc.

https://cmmid.github.io/topics/covid19/uk-novel-variant.html