‘There’s an opportunity here to be an example of how to get out of a local lockdown’

How worried should we be? Will more of the county go into lockdown?

“We should all be concerned – and everyone in Leicestershire should be taking steps to stay safe.

“This isn’t a case of people living in the lockdown areas are somehow in the infected zone – we’re all at risk if we’re not able to dampen the rate of infection.”

How were lockdown areas chosen and does the new data you’ve published support this?

“Within 12 hours of the Secretary of State’s announcement, we’d published a map – followed by a postcode checker.

“The virus does not respect administrative boundaries – and our map reflects the areas where we’re seeing higher rates, which are generally around the city.

The use of easily understandable boundaries, such as the A46, is as solid a reason given the need to define an area in which restrictions need to apply, informed by data on current infection rates.

“As we’ve said, the map is not perfect. There is no trigger rate for lockdown but we need to get on top of this virus before it spreads further in Leicestershire again.

The line does not mark safe or unsafe areas – everybody needs to take action with regard to their personal behaviour.”

Why have you not published this more localised data before? Will you publish the postcode level data?

“We started getting this data from Public Health England at the end of June and we were not allowed to publish postcode level data – not because we wanted to hide it but we were only allowed to use it for planning and service purposes.

“That’s why we have worked with Public Health England (PHE) to change the use of the data – and that now includes sharing with the public. That’s why we’ve published more information now.”

What is the R rate for Leicestershire?

“There is no R rate beneath regional areas, so we can’t use that measurement locally.

What’s important is that the number of cases per population is failing to fall as far or as fast as other areas.”

Some people have queried the death rates in different areas – and said the areas of lockdown have had fewer deaths. “Covid-related deaths have, sadly, been driven to a large extent by care home outbreaks over the course of the pandemic. The current situation is about responding to the levels of infections in the wider community. From the more detailed data published today, most cases are in a much younger population.

“So the death rate isn’t something that has driven the lockdown decisions.”

People are worried that this has tainted the reputation of Leicestershire?

“This is a global health emergency, the like of which we’ve never seen before.

“We’ve never had to manage national or local lockdown. There was always going to be a first into local lockdown – and no-one wanted it to be Leicester.

“The best thing we can do is work together to get out of lockdown fast – and share our learning with the rest of the country as they face similar challenges.

“There’s an opportunity here for the city and county to be an example of how to do local lockdown and how to get out of it.”