‘Hugs by June’ if people stick to the rules, claims city health chief
‘Road map’ should offer one way route out
WE could be hugging our loved ones by June and on the beach this summer – but only if we don’t ‘take the mick’, city public health chief Dr Justin Varney has claimed.
His optimism about the Government’s ‘road map’ out of the Covid crisis comes with strong caveats as he urges everyone to play their part in driving down infection rates in the city and take the jab.
“We all need to take responsibility for what happens next.
“It’s up to each of us about whether we are going to get the city unlocked and see a very free summer, or not,” he warned.
“If we fail the tests for the first five weeks of relaxation (from March 8 to April 12) they will likely have to tighten things back up and wait another five weeks for the next phase.
“If we want to keep summer holidays, then keep sticking to the rules, tightly. It is the people taking the mick that will undermine this.”
He also warned any signs of harmful new variants of the virus coming in from abroad that were either more deadly or risked the effectiveness of the vaccines currently rolling out would also be problematic.
“The approach being taken by the Government is sensible. If it works as I think it will, we will have a long goodbye to Covid, but we will get out and stay out. We will get used to testing continually, the vaccination rollout will continue – but if we keep case rates down we can get out and stay out.”
Dr Varney responded to various aspects of the so-called road map:
The plan states that from March 29 people do not have to ‘stay home’ and so can extend your travel horizons within reason.
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Dr Varney said: “There is more guidance to come but my take is that your local travel must be to somewhere you are easily able to get there and back from in the same day. “Does it mean you can drive from Sutton Coldfield to Lickey Hills for a walk? I think it probably does.
“Does it mean you can push it and have a day trip to London? I would say not.
”My reading of the road map is that we need to hold on a bit longer
to give hugs – until at least June, when many of the first nine priority groups will be fully vaccinated.
“We may start to see some new guidance emerge in late April and early May – by then large numbers of the most vulnerable people will have had a second dose and been protected for at least three weeks – that means they have pretty strong protection against catching Covid.
“We will start to see a divide appearing between those vaccinated and those who are not.”
■ Could a new variant knock the road map plan off course?
Dr Varney said: “The Kent variant now accounts for about 98-99 per cent of all new cases in Birmingham. There is some science/research that suggests it has elbowed other vari
ants out. As vaccination improves and we get better vaccination coverage, the virus has less chance to mutate – but it is more likely to mutate in people with chronic diseases and who have impaired immune systems.
“It has much more freedom to change itself when infecting those people, than when it is in someone who is very healthy.
“So as the vaccination programme moves through the country, the risk of new variants in the UK becomes less.
“While we have limited international travel and quarantine rules, we can feel reasonably comfortable.
“The big threat is the potential of new variants emerging around the world and coming in from countries where vaccination is less well established.”
At the moment, the new variants here (Kent, South African and Brazil) are more infectious but don’t kill more people and the vaccine still works, but not quite as well, he said.
Schools return on March 8 en masse – a decision that has prompted some concern among teaching unions and in vulnerable households worried about a new spike in cases as kids mix in large numbers.
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Dr Varney said: “The reality is that kids not being in school is really damaging, particularly for younger children.
“In my own family I am seeing younger children struggle, even with intensive support, and starting to see signs of regression.
“The sooner we get kids back to school, the better.
“But the onus is now going to be on schools around testing, particularly for secondary schools.”
Pubs and restaurants face a long wait to fully reopen – is this right when evidence suggests they are very Covid safe places?
We will start to see a divide appearing between those vaccinated and those who are not.
The road map sets out a gradual reopening of pubs, restaurants and leisure venues, starting with limited outdoor activities leading up to full reopening in June.
Dr Varney said: “One of the things that hospitality businesses tell us has been most damaging has been the in-out nature of lockdown, and the insecurity of what happens next.
“This time, it is better to wait and get out properly than do what happened in November – we came out of lockdown for a month, and then back in, and that was devastating.
“Owners got stock in, brought staff off furlough, had two weeks of operations, then had to shut down again.
“The message we are hearing is it is better to wait and get out properly.
“I feel this is our shot of getting out of restrictions for the rest of the year – and we either follow the roadmap or we stuff it up and go back into tight restrictions and a year more of in-and-out of lockdown.
“We must be patient and the reward is a much more viable future.”
Dr Justin Varney
THE Covid pandemic and lockdowns have destroyed 100,000 jobs in Birmingham, Solihull, Coventry and the Black Country, West Midlands Mayor Andy Street has claimed.
Young people, and people from ethnic minority communities, have been hardest hit, he said.
He set out his concerns about jobs in the region in a document which revealed his requests to the Chancellor, in the run-up to yesterday’s Budget. In a document called Getting the West Midlands Back into
Work,
the mayor spoke about jobs in the area served by the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA), including Birmingham, Solihull, Coventry and the Black Country.
He said: “There has been an unmistakable increase in the claimant count since the start of the pandemic – with nearly 85,000 more people across the WMCA region claiming compared to the year before.
“In the face of these statistics, it is looking likely that the West Midlands Combined Authority area that I serve as Mayor is set to see 100,000 more people out of work – eradicating the gains of the previous three years.”
He said hospitality businesses and shops had suffered most during the pandemic.
“Many of our young people are facing great difficulties finding work and securing their place within the labour market. In the WMCA area, as we entered the new year, we had 41,160 claimants aged 16-24 – almost nine per cent of that group.”
And BAME (Black and minority ethnic) communities had also been disproportionately affected, he said.
“At a national level, the economic effects of the crisis have been particularly severe for BAME communities. Every region of the UK has a BAME unemployment rate that is higher than the unemployment rate for white people, and here in the West Midlands, with the country’s largest BAME population outside of London, that is a major problem.”
He added: “We need to find 100,000 jobs, but we also need to make sure they are spread evenly across the West Midlands, and can be accessed by our region’s youngsters and those from some of the most deprived communities.”
Mr Street called for an extension of the VAT cuts for businesses such as hospitality firms, and providing continued business rate exemptions.
ABIRMINGHAM pharmacist hid behind his mother’s good name to sell up to 800,000 prescription drugs to dealers on the black market.
Balkeet Singh Khaira, of All Saints Drive, Sutton Coldfield, was jailed for 12 months after pleading guilty to five charges of supplying a controlled drug of class C.
The 37-year-old worked at his mother’s Khaira Pharmacy, in High Street, West Bromwich, and made over £59,000 from the drugs, which are prescribed for pain relief, anxiety and insomnia.
The medicines were sold at huge profit during 2016 and 2017 – with the value on the black market estimated to be over £1 million.
Officials from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and police visited the pharmacy after an investigation.
Records found there showed hundreds of thousands of doses of diazepam, nitrazepam, tramadol, zolpidem and zopiclone were bought from wholesalers – but only a small percentage had been dispensed against prescription.
MHRA said more than 800,000 pills were unaccounted for, which Khaira later admitted he sold to drug dealers.
The probe began following allegations the pharmacy was selling large quantities of medicine without a prescription.
When contacted about the investigation by the General Pharmaceutical Council, Khaira pretended to be his mother and said he was “shocked and blindsided” by the accusations. He then went on provide falsified evidence intended to disprove the allegations, MHRA said.
Khaira claimed that after initially making a voluntary sale to drug dealers he was then forced to sell further medicines after he was threatened outside of his shop.
He refused to provide any information on who these people were or who he sold to, MHRA added.
Khaira was suspended from the General Pharmaceutical Council’s pharmacist register under an interim order, which meant he was unable to practice while waiting for the case to come to court.
His mother was not involved in any of the criminal activity.
Simon Hunka, prosecuting, told Birmingham Crown Court: “Khaira has been a qualified pharmacist since August 2008. He has been working from the family business for a number of years.
“On June 22, 2017 the General Pharmaceutical Council received information a particular pharmacy was supplying large quantities of prescription only medication without prescriptions for them.
“That triggered an investigation.” When medical authorities emailed the business, Khaira posed as his mother – claiming all was in order and there was “nothing to be seen here”.
Investigations revealed the pharmacist had ordered around 30,000 packets of five different kinds of drugs but only 1,396 could be matched with prescriptions.
The surplus had been “diverted” on to the black market. “These drugs are in high demand and can command high prices on the black market,” said Mr Hunka.
Officers who went to the premises arrested Khaira and his mother in February 2018. The defendant later told police he had been supplying the drugs to a group of people after meeting someone at a gym.
He said they would be collected by a “facilitator” and admitted some of the money he received went into his account rather than the pharmacy till.
Mr Hunka said analysis of the defendant’s bank account revealed unidentified cash credits of just over £59,000.
Passing sentence, Judge Heidi Kubic QC told him: “These are serious offences. For a period of 18 months, between February 2016 and August 2017, you allowed five different types of addictive class C drugs to be diverted on to the black market in significant quantities. Some 29,000 packets were so diverted. The pharmacy was run by your mother and your activities caused her to be arrested when she had done nothing wrong.” Ekwal Tiwana, defending, said: “Serious threats were made to him and his family at the beginning of him committing these offences. He was approached by a person he knew from the gym who asked him for some sleeping tablets. The defendant foolishly supplied them.”
He said things snowballed and continued: “He was then offered hush money and he took that foolishly.”