Lockdown ‘fatigue’ is playing part in rise of Covid cases
LEICESTER lockdown fatigue has played a part in the rise of coronavirus cases in the city lately, officials believe.
The city was the first part of the UK to have local restrictions imposed on it to stop the spread of the virus in June and has been in various degrees of lockdown since.
While the number of new infection cases in the city remained high in comparison to the national average, they were falling until the end of last month when they started to rise again.
City council public health bosses have been looking for the reasons behind the re-emergence of Covid-19 locally and believe it may be linked to the amount of time – three months – people in the city have lived under strict rules that initially limited nonessential travel, kept pubs and bars and gyms closed, while they reopened elsewhere in the UK, and then a ban on household gatherings that remains in place.
Rob Howard, Leicester City Council’s consultant in public health, said after such a long time some people were now less stringent about sticking to the rules.
He said: “It’s much more about younger people who are going out to pubs and restaurants and are being less vigilant about socially-distancing and not meeting other people because they are fed up with it.
“There are people now who also say ‘well, I’m just going to see my aunty or uncle or granny’ because here in Leicester it has been such a long time since they were able to do that.
“Our feeling is there is a general sense that people have just had enough, there is fatigue around the messaging. The problem is we know that if people let their guard down, don’t socially distance, if they start mixing between households, then the virus will come again.”
He stressed the more people who became infected, even with mild symptoms, the more likely it would be Covid-19 eventually reached more vulnerable members of the community.
He said on the current trajectory that would lead to rising hospital admissions and potentially more deaths, though levels of both remain currently well below the peak of the pandemic in spring.
He added: “The frustrating thing is that what we were doing worked.
“You just need to look at the graph of cases of the weekly numbers.
“We were at a really high point and for two months all that work we did brought it right down but it’s frustrating what has happened in the next few weeks.
“If we don’t do something now, it will just carry on.”