‘I’d like to trust the public to keep us out of tier two’
THE county’s director of public health has said that he would “push back strongly” if it is suggested parts of Leicestershire are moved to higher alert levels.
Mike Sandys said he had “no desire for us to lock down the county any earlier than we need to”.
Shortly after the government announced its three-tier system this week, it was revealed Leicestershire would be in the medium alert level.
Oadby and Wigston is classed as high alert because local lockdown restrictions were in place when areas were graded.
Every area in Leicestershire now has a rate of more than 100 cases per 100,000 people and Charnwood is now reporting a higher rate of cases than in Leicester, despite the city being a higher tier.
Asked what it would take for areas of Leicestershire to have their alert levels escalated, Mr Sandys said: “There still seems to be a sense nationally that the government will start having a conversation with you if your rates are over 100.
“In the context of everywhere in Leicestershire being above 100 and the national average now being 150, I find that a bit of a meaningless argument.
“It is a numbers game. If rates continue to go up and reach 150 or 200 across the county, at what point would someone from government come to me and say, we’ve trusted you to lead this and for people to do the right thing but they’re not, so we are going to have to consider imposing stuff that wasn’t done voluntarily?”
On whether he thought there was a risk that areas with high rates could face further curbs, he said: “It would be influenced by being able to say what was driving the rise in cases, whether I thought the interventions would be effective. But, ultimately, it’s about what the numbers are. “But there are other things. If you had a big outbreak at a factory, and you can say this is the issue and contain it, there is no need for extra restrictions.
“The number of over-60s testing positive is starting to become a critical indicator as well. We’re keeping it out of that group at the moment.
“We’re not just looking at one number, you’re looking at the local issues, what the position is and the spread into a vulnerable community.”
Describing how decisions are reached, he said: “Every week there are the meetings with the joint biosecurity centre and with Health Secretary Matt Hancock.
“We discuss what the picture is looking like. There is a joint discussion along the lines of, are we comfortable and on top of it, is there anything we want from the government around national restrictions?
“Different places have played it in different ways and you can debate whether the right thing to do is to say, yes we need tougher restrictions across areas or not, but from a Leicester and Leicestershire point of view, people are pretty fed up of being in lockdown and I would like to trust people to keep the levels as low as we can for as long as we can because we don’t know how bad things will get.
“At the end of the day, it’s not down to me, or the government, it’s a numbers game unfortunately and that’s down to people’s behaviours.
“At the moment I’d be pushing back fairly strongly because I’ve no desire for us to lock down the county any earlier than we need to.”