New rules ‘likely to last for weeks’

STRICT new coronavirus controls across East Lancashire will last for weeks, health bosses have warned.

They apply to Hyndburn, Rossendale, Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley and Pendle as well as Greater Manchester and parts of Yorkshire.

The restrictions on household gatherings and people’s movements were suddenly imposed on July 30 by Health Secretary Matt Hancock.

At a Lancashire Resilience Forum press conference, Lancashire’s public health director Dr Sakthi Karunanithi and his Blackburn with Darwen counterpart Professor Dominic Harrison said it would be at least two weeks before the government would have enough information to even consider lifting the new rules.

Forum chairwoman Angie Ridgwell said: “These restrictions are there because we are seeing infection rates across East Lancashire continuing to rise and it’s important for everyone that we get those infection rates down.”

Dr Karunanithi warned: “We know it takes at least 10 days, 14 days from catching the infection for it to become really apparent.

“My gut feeling is that this will last for at least a couple of weeks before we start to see the changes in the numbers and the infection rates. The other thing to say is this is very rapidly changing.”

Prof Harrison, who this week extended special measures in the borough, said: “The key message is that we are not locking down East Lancashire but we are locking down the virus within East Lancashire.

“We are trying to reduce the number of social contacts people have during a period of high and rising rates across a number of local authority areas.”