Working to make the streets safe

THIS week the ‘unlocking’ process has extended to a few more things. ‘Reopening’ of primary schools from 1st June was flagged some weeks in advance. In realty most schools have remained open for children of key workers or considered vulnerable and the number of extra children now returning is still quite small.

But a huge amount of preparation work has been done by teachers to enable even this to happen.

By contrast the decision that people in the shielded group can now leave home was announced with less than 24 hours’ notice taking many by surprise.

For each change there is a debate about whether it is too quick or too slow.

At the council we are working with others to make sure the streets are as safe as possible as we move towards reopening of more shops from June 15.

At every point the government has rightly said that testing is the key to preventing a second wave of COVID19.

So when the Association of Directors of Public Health say, as they did on Sunday, “let’s be clear, the NHS ‘Test and Trace’ programme is currently far from being the robust operation that is now urgently required as a safeguard to easing restrictions” we should all listen.

While nationally teams have been recruited to carry out ‘Test and Trace’ they only started operating on Thursday and the much mentioned NHS Contact-tracing App is yet to be rolled out beyond the Isle of Wight.

Each area, in our case Gloucestershire, is also due to have a Local Outbreak Plan ready to help tackle any major new outbreaks in their area.

This work is being coordinated by the local Director of Public Health but it is not expected to be fully in place before the end of June and government guidance on how it should work is still not clear.

Given all that, the ADPH concern is understandable.

I’m sure we would all like things to get back to normal, but it is essential the government make sure test and trace is fully working before pressing ahead with more changes.