‘Stop punishing us’ say town hall lockdown bosses
FURIOUS town hall bosses have accused the Government of unfairly ‘ punishing’ councils with good Covid- 19 testing regimes after draconian new lockdown measures were announced in their areas.
People living in Oldham and parts of Blackburn and Pendle were banned from socialising with anyone outside their household from midnight yesterday.
Public transport can be used only for essential journeys and there is a 20-person limit for funerals and weddings.
But Mohammed Iqbal, the Labour leader of Pendle Council, which argued against the new rules, said the measures had been ‘ imposed to punish people who have been testing flat out’.
The row came as:
• The Cabinet Office briefed senior Government figures to prepare for a second UK lockdown in November in a ‘worstcase scenario’;
• Thousands of holidaymakers rushed back from Croatia, Austria and Trinidad and Tobago before new 14-day quarantine rules came into force;
• Scotland reported 123 new cases, its highest figure for three months, most of them linked to an outbreak at a food processing plant;
• A former UK chief scientific adviser warned that coronavirus will be present ‘for ever’ like flu, and people are likely to need regular vaccinations;
• But the head of the World Health Organisation said he hoped the coronavirus pandemic would be over within two years.
Mr Iqbal and other council officials claimed infection rates were high because more people were being tested than in other areas. But the Government said it was concerned that a rise in positive testing i n Oldham, Blackburn and Pendle was due to ‘social mixing’ among 20 to 39-year-olds. Many families are of Pakistani heritage and the country’s cricket captain, Azhar Ali, whose team are playing England, recorded a video on behalf of Oldham Council yesterday urging people to follow the new restrictions amid fears that the message was not getting through.
Meanwhile, The Mail on Sunday understands that the Cabinet Office has held private briefings with senior figures to warn that the crucial R rate could double next month and treble by November, triggering a second lockdown.
An R rate of one or higher means the virus is spreading. It is now between 0.9 and 1.1 but Government advisers have warned it could surge to 3.5 by November. Last night, a Government spokesman said: ‘ As a responsible Government, we continue to prepare for a wide range of scenarios, including the reasonable worst-case scenario, but these are not forecasts or predictions.’
A further 1,288 people were diagnosed with Covid- 19 in the UK yesterday, marking the biggest Saturday rise in eight weeks.
Officials said another 18 people had died, bringing the UK’s total toll to 41,423.
But the Office for National Statistics estimated that weekly infections had plummeted by a third in a week, with an average of 2,400 people contracting the disease every day in England last week, down from 3,800 the previous week.
Professor Sir Mark Walport, a member of the Government’s Sage group of scientists, told Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘This is a virus that is going to be with us for ever in some form or another and almost certainly will require repeated vaccinations.’
‘This is a virus that will be with us for ever’