City is too big for a total lockdown
DEAR Editor, A former Birmingham City Council leader has criticised the city’s current approach to increasing numbers of cases of Covid-19 in the city.
He suggests that numbers in most individual areas are actually very small or zero. He identifies that the present number of associated deaths is also very small and says that Birmingham’s citizens should be praised rather than punished for the way most of them have behaved.
This devastating condition has killed many people and it is obvious from what is happening in other countries that a rapid and serious flare-up in numbers of infections can occur – it must be taken exceptionally seriously and anti-Covid guidelines followed by all citizens.
However, our health authorities and politicians should bear in mind when talking of, or introducing, a local lockdown that, as former Councillor Clancy pointed out, this is an enormous city compared with most other English conurbations and many areas have recently experienced very few cases of Covid19, although the inner city has been more seriously affected.
In Northfield constituency, much of which could be described as sub-rural rather than suburban, the present seven-day figure for new cases of Covid-19 is 4 per 100,000, all in one small area and possibly all in one household, with no other area in the whole constituency having a single case. The rate here is, and has been for some time, about 10 12.5 per cent of the city as a whole.
If this situation remains unchanged I feel it would be very wrong to take drastic measures in south-west Birmingham even though the inner city might be experiencing the problem at much greater rates. Much of the constituency is several miles from areas of increased rates; it might as well be said that if rates were high in Bromsgrove then Northfield should be locked down as the town is as close to our constituency as are Birmingham’s troubled inner city wards.
Clearly if the south-west Birmingham situation changes then it should be treated like the rest of the city but at present there is a very strong case for treating the area as a separate entity to be spared any drastic action needing to be taken in inner Birmingham. Graham Knight, West Heath, Birmingham