A second Covid spike worries me
Lifestyle blogger IMOGEN ALLEN, 22, from Snelston, raises questions over the handling of the local lockdown imposed in Leicester
Will a Local Lockdown Work?
As of Monday, June 29, it was announced the city of Leicester (and several suburbs) would have to go into a local lockdown.
This is because the government declared Leicestershire to have by far the highest number of COVID-19 cases in England; the local lockdown is needed to prevent the spread.
The rest of the country are getting used to the lockdown rules being relaxed, but for Leicester, the city is going back to where the country started.
By now, we’ve also experienced ‘Super Saturday,’ where hairdressers, pubs and themeparks opened with measures to prevent the spread.
However, it was still referred to on social media as ‘Super
Spreader Saturday.’
It is undoubtedly tough on Leicester business owners.
Two pubs could be five minutes apart from each other, yet only one is allowed to open. It will be tough to see the news coverage, as the relaxation of rules are reported on – especially because it depends upon how individuals act.
As I mentioned last week, an increase in alcohol consumption at the pubs may lead to a decrease in compliance.
Holiday operators are also turning away bookings that are made by Leicester residents and I know I’d be pretty miffed to see people flaunting the guidelines (e.g. going on holiday with more than one family) whilst living in a local lockdown.
But we’ve also got to question the extent to which a local lockdown can be imposed.
Leicester is known for train transport links across the country - it takes approx. 20 minutes to go from Leicester to Derby and 30 minutes to Nottingham.
Although it is currently not advised to travel in or out of Leicester, how will that be a reality? Especially if you are required to work outside of an area which is ‘locked down.’ B
Blame towards the high cases of coronavirus in Leicester are being thrown around on social media. The Black Lives Matter protests is one point of blame, but in response, other cities did not see such a spike in COVID-19 cases following their protests.
There is also blame pointed towards workplaces, suggesting that social distancing was not correctly practiced.
An example is the large online fashion retailer, Boohoo.
Their factory has been accused of driving production without appropriate social distancing and breaching government rules by asking employees to work whilst furloughed.
To be honest, I can’t say I’m surprised by this news – it has been reported previously that Boohoo pay their staff below the minimum wage.
Bradford’s COVID-19 cases are also on the rise, another diverse populated city. Here, the news reports resident frustrations towards people who are flaunting the social distancing guidelines.
Again, the potential for a second lockdown is nerve-wracking. An increase in COVID-19 cases obviously has to be taken seriously and the Government is responding. But I can’t write about a local lockdown without mentioning Bournemouth beach.
In the last few weeks, there has been plenty of negative news and quite rightly, the close proximity of people on a beach gave a huge potential for coronavirus to spread.
We have been given the testing data for cities such as Bradford and Leicester from pretty much every media outlet, but do we have any testing data for cities like Bournemouth?
There is no mention of a local lockdown to take place.
Talking about local lockdowns, I’d recommend watching the BBC adaptation of ‘The Salisbury Poisonings’ if you haven’t already. It’s obviously a different context to coronavirus, but it plays out the number of steps Salisbury police took to contain the spread of poison within the city, preventing a larger number of fatalities.
Released on TV in the middle of June, it does seem a bit coincidental. But it does give pause for thought, the local lockdown to prevent spread worked in that scenario. “We’re in unprecedented times” has been said more times that we can count, the catchphrase of 2020 maybe?!
But this suggests that we do actually have to see how a local lockdown can work. I feel for Leicester and I hope that they will be able to overcome a local lockdown. If they can, maybe it’ll take us one step forward to life after lockdown without a vaccine.