‘BORIS, HELP HULL OUT OF COVID-19 EMERGENCY’
COUNCIL LEADER CALLING ON THE PRIME MINISTER TO PROVIDE EXTRA GOVERNMENT SUPPORT
CITY council leader Steve Brady y is calling on Boris Johnson to provide extra government support to help Hull deal with its coronavirus s crisis.
The city’s infection rate is cur- rently the highest in the country y and is continuing to rise, while e Hull Royal Infirmary and Castle e Hill hospitals are now treating g more Covid-positive patients than n at the height of the first wave in n late April.
Public health officials in Hull are warning the current surge in infections across the city has yet to reach its peak.
Today, Cllr Brady has written a personal letter to the Prime Minister describing the situation in Hull as a “health emergency”.
In it, he describes the recent spike in cases in Hull as “astonishing and terrifying” and points out that, as yet, the city’s leaders have had no direct contact from central government over the developing crisis.
“On this occasion, as has too frequently been the case in the past, we seem, once again, to be the forgotten city.” It echoes a similar letter sent by the city’s three MPS last week to health secretary Matt Hancock.
Cllr Brady said: “This is not about political point scoring, it is about fighting for our local people. “We need government support, as other areas have received, to get through this pandemic and it is vital we make it absolutely clear to them what is needed.
“Government has directly supported other areas which have had particularly high rates and – before the national lockdown – entered tier three restrictions.
“We are not asking for special treatment. We are asking for the absolute minimum we need to get through this pandemic.
“We will not stand by and let Hull be forgotten. Yes, we are a resilient city and we have never been short on fighting spirit but that is not enough.
“Spirit and resilience will not beat this virus – they won’t keep our NHS services open, our businesses alive and food in people’s mouths.
“I am hopeful that the Prime Minister will take this letter seriously and will urgently speak to us about what the Government will do.
“There is absolutely no justification not to do so, this is a critical moment for our city.”
The letter includes a series of specific requests, including allowing local authorities to put “specific and meaningful” restrictions in place with a particular emphasis on giving academy trusts the power to shut entire schools if necessary.
Several schools across the city are currently only allowing certain year groups to attend because of combination of rising staff sickness levels and track and trace isolation measures.
Cllr Brady’s letter also asks for additional support from Public Health England and the national Joint Biosecurity Centre to bolster the city’s public health team and to provide urgent extra resource and support for the area’s hospitals to alleviate the critical pressure they are facing.
He is also calling on the Government to start immediate discussions with the council and its partners about what will happen in Hull when the planned period of national restrictions ends on December 2 and to reassess the level of funding given to the council for discretionary grants to help struggling businesses.
The MPS said they also wanted to see the Army being drafted into Hull to help with the roll-out of mass testing as it is currently doing in Liverpool and Cllr Brady supports this idea in his letter.
Hull has been identified as one of the areas for a national pilot scheme for mass-testing to start with more details of how and where an initial batch of 10,000 tests will be deployed expected to be released later this week.
Under the project, it is expected that Hull will receive around 26,000 testing kits a week after the initial batch.
We are not asking for special treatment. We are asking for the absolute minimum we need to get through this pandemic
Steve Brady