Is tier 3 fair on the North East?
The whole of the North East will go into tier 3 - the tightest level of restrictions - when England's second coronavirus lockdown ends next Wednesday.
The government also announced that York and North Yorkshire will be in tier 2, when the system of regional restrictions resumes.
Glancing at a map makes it clear that the North of England will, again, generally be under tougher restrictions than the south.
ITV Granada's Hannah Miller has written about the arguments for the North West.
ITV Calendar's Harry Horton analyses the situation in Yorkshire and the Humber.
Here, ITV Tyne Tees' Political Correspondent Tom Sheldrick looks at whether tier 3 is fair on the North East...
ANALYSIS
The Tees Valley was about to be put into tier 3 before the second national lockdown started at the beginning of November. The councils covering Northumberland, Tyneside, Wearside and County Durham had been fighting off that fate for several weeks.
Now, a tougher version of tier 3 has been imposed across the North East, without negotiation with local leaders.It has provoked a lot of resentment, clear from interviews we've done with local people, the comments on our social media pages, and the remarks of elected representatives.
The government have published brief 'rationale' for their decision for each area. For the Tees Valley they said: "While case rates are now decreasing in all lower tier local authorities, they remain very high at 390 people per 100,000 across the region, with positivity also very high at 13.3%. The case rate in over 60s remains very high at 292 per 100,000. NHS admissions in the area have remained high in November."
For the seven council areas further north, they said: "The region continues to see very high case rates, overall 318 people per 100,000, although this figure is either stable or falling in all parts of the region. Case rate in over 60s remains very high at 256 per 100,000. NHS admissions in the area have remained high in November."
They have promised to provide detailed assessments of the social and economic impacts of the tiers, before MPs vote on Tuesday on returning to this system. Significant Conservative rebellion is brewing. Most of our region's Tory MPs have been noticeably quiet since these tiers were announced, but I think it's fair to suggest that many will be seething, in conversations behind the scenes.
Our Labour MPs are publicly decrying an "endless cycle" of restrictions, further damaging businesses and people's wellbeing. They say the ongoing situation is largely due to failings in the test and trace system.
Several have questioned London only being in tier 2, when parts of the city have higher coronavirus rates than parts of our region. On the whole, figures show the capital's rates are lower, though rising in many boroughs. Positive cases have been falling in every council area of the North East, though from a much higher level.
It's not a straightforward picture though. The latest update yesterday from the Office for National Statistics' Infection Survey estimated 1.7% of people in the wider community (not in hospitals or care homes) in the North East had the virus around 18 November. That's well above the national average, and shows a rise again after previous weeks of levelling off.
Over the last few months, it has felt like every time things have looked up, they quickly point the other way again.
The previous tiers, and the way areas were placed within them, weren't doing enough to stop the spread of the virus - that's why lockdown was needed again. The government are certainly being very cautious now, across the board. The Health Secretary talked about "safeguarding the gains" made during lockdown, and the Prime Minister spoke about needing to get through a "hard winter."
On the charge ministers are facing in many eyes - of protecting some areas of the country while targeting others - it's difficult to find motive, particularly when the Conservatives have so many new northern MPs, and talk so regularly about "levelling up" prosperity around the country. Politically, this regionalised tier system is dangerous for them more than anything.
A more subconscious bias may be more possible to detect. We explored in September how the first national lockdown was eased at a time when London was well past the peak of the first wave, but deaths were still significantly higher in the north.
There is an argument that the virus continued to circulate at higher levels in regions like ours through the summer, helping explain why the second wave has affected the North of England worse.
So you can understand why people feel hard done by, particularly as large parts of the North East have had local restrictions in place since September now.Shops, gyms, hairdressers and more will reopen next Wednesday, but with hospitality venues still closed and mixing indoors still banned, in many ways it will feel like lockdown continuing.