HULL AVOIDS LOCAL COVID LOCKDOWN
... BUT CITY IS NOW IN THE DEEP DARK BROWN
HULL and the East Riding have e escaped a local lockdown but new w figures show the areas are danger- ously close to tougher restrictions.
Both areas were yesterday placed d in the lowest tier in the Govern- ment’s new lockdown system.
All of East Yorkshire is in the e “medium” alert level – which will cover most of the country – consisting of the current national l measures, which came into force on n September 25.
This includes the Rule of Six and the closure of pubs and restaurants at 10pm.
But the local infection rates in Hull l and the East Riding remains high, , although not on the scale of other r major cities and towns in the North h and Midlands.
In East Riding, the seven day rate e is 111.1 cases per 100,000 and in n Hull 78.9 per 100,000. Across the e two areas, there have been almost 600 new cases in the week up to October 9. Senior Government advisors have now classified both h as areas of concern because of the e rapid rise in cases.
This means that unless the acceleration in cases drops or stalls, Hull and the East Riding could be affected by tougher lockdown rules and moved into the “high alert” state, where the main change is people not being able to mix with other household indoors.
In official government charts released yesterday, Hull and the East Riding are both included in the dark brown areas where the acceleration of Covid cases is highest.
Dark brown indicates a rate change of more than 40 cases per 100,000 between September 23-19 and September 30 to October 6.
It is these rates which have triggered the move to the new system of lockdowns as cases rise rapidly across northern England and the Midlands.
Dark brown covered areas range from Liverpool, which has been placed in the highest level of lockdown, to Lancashire, large areas of Yorkshire, the East Midlands and northern Lincolnshire.
Presenting the slides, Professor Jonathan Van-tam, the Government’s deputy chief medical officer, said: “The dark brown areas indicate the latest data on where things
are heating up and dark brown clearly means things are heating up. You can see that the reach of the dark brown colours is further south into a greater land mass across England.”
Professor VanTam said the rate had even deteriorated since Friday when he last presented the slides.
He said: “The brown chart had not extended that far south. So it has changed in just a matter of a few days and that is clearly of concern to me.”
Mr Van Tam also said the highest cases were currently among 16 to 29-year-olds but there was now an “incremental creep” into the next age band up, 30 to 44. He said he expected that to continue in two or three weeks into the 45 to 59s followed by the vulnerable 60-plus age range.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke to MPS in Parliament yesterday when he introduced a three-tier system of local Covid alert levels in England.
He confirmed the levels will be set at medium, high and very high and says this new system will be simpler and standardised.
Speaking later a Downing Street press conference, Mr Johnson defended the new measures saying a “balanced approach” was needed to tackle the virus, stating he did not support another national lockdown.
He said: “I think many people would think that was extreme and
would do a great deal of extra harm to our economy.
“We don’t want to go down that extreme route right now.” Mr Johnson said he could not support the other side of the argument, of not having measures to stop the virus, as “all the maths is brutal, it would lead to too many fatalities”. England’s chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, said the notion that restrictions can be imposed “without causing harm is an illusion”. He told the Downing Street press conference: “We’re going to have to do more, that’s the whole point of what the Prime Minister has just announced, and probably in some areas significantly more.
“The balancing act here, and in a sense that’s reflected by the fact the Chancellor and I are standing here, is doing things which pull down the virus to the point which the R goes down below one, but with a minimal impact on the economy that you can get away with.
“But none of us have any illusions about this and I would like to be really clear about this because I think we should not have any illusions.
“The idea that we can do this without causing harm is an illusion.
“It is a balancing act between two harms: a harm for society and the economy on the one hand and a harm for health on the other hand.”
It is a balancing act between two harms: a harm for society and the economy on the one hand and a harm for health on the other hand
Professor Chris Whitty