Reflecting on year that has taken big toll
It has now been 12 months since the UK’S first national lockdown.
A minute’s silence was held at noon on Tuesday and an evening doorstep vigil took place in a day of reflection to mark the anniversary of the UK’S first coronavirus lockdown.
Bath and North East Somerset Council has said its thoughts are with the families and loved ones of the 281 people in Bath and North East Somerset who have died from coronavirus.
Reflecting on the last year, council leader Dine Romero said the challenges bought on by the pandemic for everyone was “hard to comprehend” adding that her thoughts are with the families who have lost a loved one.
Dr Bruce Laurence, the council’s director of public health, said that whilst the area had a “relatively mild pandemic” all of our lives had been “hugely affected” in the last year “on a scale that we could hardly even have imagined, except in the context of something cataclysmic like a major war”.
He said: “While we have seen our Covid-related statistics rise and fall through the past year, two things are undeniable.
“The first is that Bath and North East Somerset has had a relatively mild pandemic by overall England standards, being well towards the lower end of both case rates and deaths.
“But the second is that our world and our lives have still been hugely affected in the last year, on a scale that we could hardly even have imagined, except in the context of something cataclysmic like a major war.
“In terms of this general disruption the local impact has been very significant, although different in nature to many other localities, as the income of the area’s businesses, and the council, are both heavily dependent on visitors and retail trade, and those vulnerabilities have been severely exposed.
“Here, as everywhere, we will be living with the consequences of this pandemic and the measures taken to try to control it, for years and decades to come.
“We are now finally, and thanks largely to the extraordinary efforts of the world’s vaccine scientists and technologists, and our own health professionals, at a point where we may be able to move out from the major restrictions of the past year to something rather closer to a normal way of life; at least one where Covid is not the dominating factor.
“But this new coronavirus is still with us, and we will have to co-exist with it, effectively forever. Therefore, we must have in place longterm plans and systems that can ensure that we maintain the upper hand in the struggle between human and virus.”
This week the council is launching its Shining A Light 2020/21 Awards to celebrate individuals, teams and organisations that have made an exceptional contribution during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Ms Romero said: “It is hard to comprehend the enormous challenges our families, our communities and our own council family have all had to face in the last year.
“First and foremost our thoughts are with the families of the 281 of our residents who have sadly lost their lives to Covid. “As many of us look back to the events of the past year I would like to pay a deep, personal and heartfelt tribute, on behalf of all councillors, to our NHS colleagues, our health care workers, the thousands of volunteers, carers, teachers, the police and the council’s own staff who have responded to the enormous challenges brought about by the pandemic.
“We also recognise the immense hardship our local and independent businesses have had and are still going through. We are also marking the first anniversary of the start of the Community Wellbeing Hub which was set up by the council, Virgincare and 3SG in response to the pandemic.
“A year on the hub can been seen as one of the positives to come out of the experience - not only for the amazing work that has been done to support the community but also the way it has shown how partners can work together. We thank them all.”
Throughout the year council staff have maintained essential frontline services from waste and cleansing to parks and registrars.