VIRUS HOTSPOTS ON THE BRINK OF LOCKDOWN
Fears of clampdowns in towns and cities as infection rates rise
MORE towns and cities will follow Leicester into Covid-19 lockdowns, top scientists are warning.
They raised the alert after the spotlight fell on high localised infection rates.
Experts said health districts including Bradford were “clearly of concern” amid expectations of a trend of coronavirus clusters.
Two professors, Peter Horby and Neil Ferguson,
spoke as Leicester’s schools prepared to close again today and police warned residents against trying to break the shutdown.
The East Midlands city topped a league table of pockets of infection, with 140.2 new cases per 100,000 people for the week to June 21.
Behind it in the Public Health England list was Bradford with 69.4 per 100,000, Barnsley with 54.7, Rochdale with 53.6 and Bedford with 42.
As Boris Johnson and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer clashed in the Commons over the Leicester lockdown, the experts told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme about the new danger.
Prof Horby, a University of Oxford epidemiologist, said we should “unfortunately” brace ourselves for more lockdowns.
The professor is chair of Nervtag, the Government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group.
He said: “We’ve seen the epidemic is focal, which is often the case, it’s not the same in all places. We saw that London unfortunately led the way in the UK and now Leicester is unfortunately leading the way and we can expect more of that.
“So I think there will have to be local responses to local outbreaks.”
Prof Ferguson – the expert from Imperial College London who quit the SAGE advisory committee after breaking lockdown to see his married lover – said we are only in the “very early” stages of the pandemic.
He warned: “There’s a bit of an illusion out there that somehow we are past the worst.”
He said further lockdowns are “inevitable” with Bradford “clearly of concern” and added:
“We are relaxing lockdown rules. That means contacts in the population are going up and that’s a very variable process.”
Bradford Council’s leader Susan Hinchcliffe said officials were working to bring infection rates down and urged residents to continue social distancing.
She said: “Although we are some way behind Leicester, the number of people testing positive for the virus is still too high and we continue to work hard.
“It’s easy to believe that Covid-19 is less of a threat to our health and the health of our family and friends. This is
simply not the case.” In Barnsley, civic leaders said more recent data showed the infection rate had dropped since the Public Health England data was compiled.
Council leader Sir Steve Houghton and Julia Burrows, director for public health, issued a statement denying a new shutdown was needed.
They added: “This is why we do not believe at this stage any further measures will need to be implemented such as the ones seen in Leicester.
“The fact our rate has been high does mean that we ask for extra caution and vigilance by everyone in Barnsley.”
In Greater Manchester, which includes fourth-highest Rochdale and nine other badlyaffected boroughs, experts also said cases were falling.
The Greater Manchester Combined Authority said the county-wide rate for the week up to June 30 was a relatively low 13.3 positive tests per 100,000 people.
Officials said even Rochdale’s figure had dropped from the 53.6 per 100,000 in the PHE figures for the week to
June 21, to just 28.8. The remaining infection rates ranged from Oldham’s 27.8 per 100,000 and Bolton’s 21.6, down to Wigan’s 4.0 and Trafford’s 3.4.
At the other end of the scale, in the week from June 15 to June 21,West Berkshire, South Tyneside and the City of London all recorded zero coronavirus cases per 100,000 population. And the rate was lower than one in South Gloucestershire, Wokingham, Gloucestershire, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, Redcar and
Cleveland, Torbay, Lambeth and Portsmouth.
In Bedford the borough council published a Local Outbreak Control Plan, setting out how it will respond if there is a fresh crop of infections.
Mayor Dave Hodgson said: “In the case of an outbreak we need to act quickly to stop the spread of the virus.
“This may mean taking action to close a school, workplace or care home.”
In Leicester, crisp firm Walkers confirmed 28 positive Covid-19 cases among its 1,400 workers at its factory in the Beaumont Keys area.
Other food processing plants in the city, including Samworth Brothers and Pladis, which makes biscuits for McVitie’s, have also recorded cases.
In another development the pressure group Labour Behind the Label accused small textile firms of ignoring the lockdown.
In the Commons, Labour’s Sir Keir accused the Prime Minister of failing his first test in the “whack-a-mole” strategy for tackling virus clusters.
Sir Keir claimed three-quarters of people with Covid-19 are not being reached by tracers. But Boris Johnson said the test and trace system had reached 113,000 contacts who had undertaken to self-isolate.