We need to take things slowly, says health chief
PLYMOUTH’S health chief is urging people to continue following all the Government guidance as lockdown restrictions begin to ease.
In a video interview with WMN sister website PlymouthLive, Dr Ruth Harrell, director of Public Health for Plymouth, warned that despite many businesses reopening on Monday, it was not yet time for people to take their foot off the pedal.
“These are the first tentative steps towards doing that [putting Covid-19 behind us],” Dr Harrell said.
“But we do have to take it slowly and gradually.
“We’ve seen before that we thought things might be getting better, and we’ve seen how quickly cases can rise if it goes wrong. So the idea of this roadmap and how we get out of lockdown is that the steps are very gentle and controlled and measured.
“So that’s why it’s still really important that we carry on following all of the guidance we’re being asked to follow, because if we give up on everything and we stop doing everything we will almost definitely have a really difficult time of it and we will see cases rise.
“So what we’re trying to do is keep each step very gradual, just doing what the guidance says we’re allowed to do and absolutely no more.
Dr Harrell’s comments came as hundreds of businesses across the city thrust open their doors for the first time in months as England moved into Stage Two of the government’s roadmap out of lockdown on Monday.
While Dr Harrell believes now is the right time to move forward with the government roadmap, she warns we should be very wary of what the guidance is allowing us to do – and not do too much.
“If we look at the situation in terms of the number of cases and also the number of people in hospitals across the country, particularly new hospitalisations, we can see that we are in a pretty good place,” she said.
“The rates have fallen really nicely, the number of people who are being admitted to hospital and are seriously ill and, of course, the number of deaths have all fallen. [But] it [Covid19] hasn’t gone away, and that’s something we need to remember. We’re right to be optimistic and we’re right to start to open up but it hasn’t gone away completely so we can’t relax too much.”
Dr Harrell said she’s “really pleased” for local business owners who are finally able to reopen their businesses after going through “absolute hell” this past year, but is urging people to not to do everything, or visit every business, straight away.
“The only thing I would say to people is to keep this steady and gradual. You don’t have to do everything today, just because it’s open.
“Take a little breath and plan on doing things. Perhaps have a look and see when things are a little bit quieter,” she said.
“What we really don’t want is people to think ‘oh, it’s okay if I push it a little bit, it’ll be fine if I just do that little bit more’ because we don’t know that it is fine and we need to just try each step and just let it adjust, let it stabilise and then see where we are.
“Continue doing what you’ve been doing and be really cautious, still cautious and careful.”
Asked about those who say the virus is nothing to worry about Dr Harrell said: “I do despair a little. I don’t know what more evidence you need, to know that there is an infectious disease that is causing people to die.
“Just look at the hospital wards when we were in the peak, look at the number of people that were dying. The number of people dying in the country last year is hugely more than we were expecting and should have happened.
“There’s a very small proportion of those people who would have died if it hadn’t been for Covid. And a lot of people have died early, and younger than they should have done.”
She added: “It is a horrible disease, it’s a scary disease, and many people are still suffering months later and aren’t able to get back to their normal life.
“[I] don’t know what more evidence you need to realise that this is a very, very serious issue. We hope we’re finding a way out of it but denying it exists is just pointless and very foolish to me.”