Dismay at handling of lockdown news
Council leader expected move after Eid festival ‘Little engagement’ with BAME community, says MP
COVID-19: Dismay greeted the latest lockdown measures to be imposed in parts of West Yorkshire yesterday, and the manner they were announced.
Tim Swift, leader of Calderdale Council, said “... to read it on social media and then to have to wait several hours to get the detailed guidance was really very difficult” .
DISMAY GREETED the latest lockdown measures to be imposed in parts of West Yorkshire yesterday, and the manner in which they were announced.
Tim Swift, leader of the Labour-led Calderdale Council, said: “We expected something to come, but to read it on social media and then to have to wait several hours to get the detailed guidance was really very difficult.”
His district is one of three in the county, along with Bradford and Kirklees, where people from different households are now banned from meeting in their homes, gardens or indoor public venues.
Mr Swift said the suddenness of the announcement on Thursday evening, on the eve of the Islamic festival of Eid, meant it was “hard not to see a connection”.
“It has been massively difficult for the Muslim community,” he said. “I heard it compared to making the announcement at nine o’clock on Christmas Eve.”
The Conservative MP Craig Whittaker, whose Calder Valley seat is one of the areas affected by the new measures, accused sections
Tim Swift, leader of the Labour-led Calderdale Council. of the community of “not taking the pandemic seriously”.
Asked if the reference was to Asian communities, he said: “Yes – Asians and households with multiple occupancies.”
He added: “I’ve been challenging local leaders to see what extra measures they have been taking in those areas to make people take social distancing seriously. Personally I haven’t seen much evidence of that happening.”
But the Labour MP Holly Lynch, whose Halifax constituency is also affected, told The Yorkshire Post that while the increase in Covid-19 cases among black and ethnic minority communities had been concerning, there had been “very little engagement” with them.
“We are seeing high infection rates in those communities – that is well documented. What we don’t know is why,” she said.
“With so many inconsistencies and unanswered questions, it’s very difficult to get behind the public health messages and enforce them with any confidence.”
She rejected suggestions that social distancing had not been taken seriously within minority communities.
“That is categorically not what I have seen,” she said.
“In all the conversations I’ve had in Halifax there has been an understanding of the effect it’s having in those communities, and a real fear and anxiety about protecting each other from spreading the virus.”
Naz Shah, who represents Bradford West, said mosques had been “working flat out” to impose social distancing measures for Eid. “There are hand gels and people have to take their own prayer mats, not touch anyone and sit apart,” she said.
Ms Shah also accused the Government of “sinking to a new low” in its communication of the lockdown measures.
“To announce it on Twitter and to let public health officials and councils find out about it via breaking news stories is really incompetence on a different level,” she said.
It has been massively difficult for the Muslim community.