LIVERPOOL, Britain, Nov. 26 (Xinhua) -- Liverpool, the first British city conducting mass testing for COVID-19, will lower its restriction tier level to Tier Two next week, British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said Thursday.
Cautiously welcoming the "Christmas gift", Liverpool's City Mayor Joe Anderson warned that there is no room for complacency although the novel coronavirus is in remission in the city.
"This hard-won battle to be a Tier Two city is not the end. COVID-19 can bounce back, as it did so devastatingly after the summer holidays," said Anderson.
Liverpool now has become the first city to be placed into, and later out of Tier Three restrictions in England. In mid-October, local media reported that Liverpool was recording around 700 cases of COVID-19 for every 100,000 citizens, one of the highest levels in Britain.
The pandemic left downtown Liverpool, usually a buzzing metropolis, virtually deserted.
On Nov. 6, the British government launched its first mass testing project for COVID-19 in Liverpool to help drive down cases of the virus here.
According to Hancock, now there is continued improvement across the Liverpool city region. Case rates (including for the over 60s) are decreasing rapidly with some notable improvements in Liverpool, Knowsley and Sefton, as confirmed cases have fallen by 69 percent over six weeks.
Shortly after the mass testing started in the city, Gary Millar, deputy mayor of Liverpool, also the city's mayoral lead on business and international relations, called for greater cooperation between Britain and China in the battle against COVID-19.
China has showed the world that mass testing and tracing is part of the efforts that proved effective to bring the pandemic under controls.
Millar said that apart from virus control, Britain and China could also learn from each other about vaccines development, adding that British universities, especially those in Liverpool, already have "very close links" with China. Enditem
