Commons Sense By Beaconsfield MP Joy Morrissey

Happy New Year to you all! Despite the difficult circumstances this year, I hope you managed to have a safe, restful, and responsible Christmas with your friends and loved ones.

While there is much to be hopeful for this year with the rollout of vaccines and the prospect of the easing of restrictions, I must be frank with the people of Buckinghamshire.

The entire county is now in a truly dire situation. Despite the perception that Bucks, as a rural area, is safer than hotspots such as London or Slough, the entire county, in particular South Bucks, is in an identical situation to these urban centres. With a case rate of over

1,000 a day, which is remarkably similar to that at Slough and London, we should be under no illusion that our communities are less susceptible to COVID. To put it more simply in the

South East, one in 45 people now have the virus. This statistic will likely be higher in South Bucks also. Furthermore, hospitals across the county are close to capacity and could soon be overwhelmed.

What has sadly driven this is the new variant which first emerged in Kent and spread across London and the South East. This new strain is between 50-70 percent more transmissible. Meaning that previous measures which effectively suppressed the virus are now no longer enough. It is why the Government was forced to close schools and return to a strict March-style national lockdown.

What this also means is that we must now be more vigilant than ever as the chances of catching the virus have now shot up. This means not meeting anyone outside your household, even outside. It means limiting your number of trips to essential shops to as few as possible. And it means redoubling your efforts to wash your hands, maintain social distancing, wear a mask, and ensuring the rooms are well ventilated.

The hope is that we can suppress the virus enough to allow time for the vaccines to be rolled out to the most vulnerable in society. Doing so should help ease NHS capacity across the country considerably and would subsequently allow us to ease restrictions in March or late February.

Until then we as a community must do all we can to protect the NHS and save lives.

So please, stay at home.