LET’S AVOID ANOTHER CITY-WIDE LOCKDOWN
MAYOR SAYS SHUTTING DOWN WHOLE OF LEICESTER UNNECESSARY
THE mayor of Leicester is working to avoid a lockdown of the city following a spike in the number of coronavirus cases over the past fortnight.
Sir Peter Soulsby, right, said a localised lockdown of Leicester would be a “blunt instrument” to tackle the outbreak, which was revealed on Thursday evening by Health Secretary Matt Hancock.
Public health bosses then confirmed 658 positive tests in the previous fortnight out of a total of 2,494 cases confirmed since the first in the city on March 13.
The government has previously said localised lockdowns could be imposed if needed with tighter restrictions to try to stop the further spread of the virus.
However, having spoken to Mr Hancock yesterday, Sir Peter said he hoped locking down the city, or large parts of it, would not be necessary.
A LOCALISED lockdown of Leicester would be a “blunt instrument” to tackle the recent spike in the number of cases of coronavirus in the city, mayor Sir Peter Soulsby has said.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock revealed in Thursday evening’s Downing Street briefing that there had been an outbreak of Covid-19 in the city, which public health bosses then confirmed amounted to 658 positive tests in the previous two weeks.
With a total of 2,494 cases confirmed since the first in the city on March 13, that amounted to more than a quarter in the past fortnight.
Public Health England is looking to find what specific factors may have contributed to the rise and is working with Leicester City Council to see what interventions may be necessary to tackle the spike.
The government has previously said localised lockdowns could be imposed if needed with tighter restrictions to try to stop the further spread of the virus.
However, yesterday, having spoken to Mr Hancock about the situation, Sir Peter said he hoped locking down the city, or large parts of it, would not be necessary.
Sir Peter, who has himself recently apologised for making trips to see his partner in April and May before restrictions were eased, said the conversation had been constructive.
He used the conference call, with Mr Hancock and Baroness Dido Harding, who is leading the Government’s
What we desperately need is home postcode information for those who have tested positive
test and trace system, to ask for better quality data on people who have tested positive.
Sir Peter said: “What we have not been getting, and what we desperately need, is home postcode information for those who have tested positive.
“He (Mr Hancock) readily agreed to that and we should start getting that information early next week.
“When we have that we can tailor our response according to geographic areas of the city rather than resort to the blunt instrument of a citywide lockdown.
“It is most unlikely we will be locking down the whole or significant parts of the city.
“We will see when we get that more detailed information exactly how we can respond.”
Very localised alternatives to lockdown could involve door-to-door public health information sharing in affected streets and neighbourhoods.
Sir Peter said: “I also think its important we are able to get alongside that important home postcode detail, information about the ethnicity of people and their places of work.
“That way we can begin to work out how people are being infected.
“Is it from their neighbours? Is it from their colleagues?
“It is, of course, information that would have been very useful to us from Day One but I am glad we will be getting it now.”
There is already a Covid-19 mobile testing station in Evington, but the government has promised another will be sent to the city.
Sir Peter said he thought it would be well placed at Spinney Hills Park, where it would be “easily accessible to large numbers of people”.
The Mercury has asked the Department of Health and Social Care if the government would be prepared to order a localised lockdown of Leicester and in what circumstances that might occur.
We have also asked why the testing information now being promised to the city council has not previously been made available, but had not received an answer by the time we went to press last night
Sir Peter Soulsby
THE city’s director of public health has answered five key questions after Health Secretary Matt Hancock yesterday said that there is a coronavirus outbreak in parts of Leicester.
The spike in cases was revealed during yesterday’s Government coronavirus briefing
The Mercury asked Ivan Browne,
right, for more information about the spike with figures showing that 25 per cent of the city’s total cases have been confirmed in the last fortnight.
WHAT?
Health Secretary Matt Hancock cited Leicester as an example of an area with a local outbreak.
At the daily Downing Street briefing on Thursday, Mr Hancock said the discovery highlighted the importance of the test and trace system.
He said: “The good thing is that we are seeing a reduction in the number of people dying from coronavirus and indeed a reduction in the number of people dying overall.
“So that there are now just slightly fewer people dying than in a normal June week in a normal year.
“And we are doing much more to be able to trace these individual outbreaks.
“For instance, there is an outbreak right now in parts of Leicester that we’re working hard to track down and we’re putting in a mobile testing unit and we are working hard on that.
“There is another in Kirklees, in Yorkshire, and we are working very hard in both cases with the local council and, in both cases, the local director of public health is doing a magnificent job.
“There are these local outbreaks, we’ve seen them all the way through and we now have a system in place to spot them and take local action.
“It’s natural as lockdown lifts the next move is to more local action in order to tackle outbreaks as we find them.”
WHO?
Mr Browne said: “The numbers suggest the cases are in working-age people going about their normal business.
“It seems to be community spread, there’s no one site like a factory, for example, that we can trace it back to.
“We are not really seeing children or younger people in the data.”
WHERE?
Postcode data has not been made available to the city council yet.
Mr Browne said: “The nature of the virus means it can move across the city quickly.
“Wherever we find it we are trying to close it down, we’re testing as much as we can, we are aggressively addressing it whenever and wherever it appears.
“People might see a testing centre in one area this week and another somewhere else in the city next.
“We are doing all we can to contain it.”
WHEN?
Some 25 per cent of the city’s cases have been confirmed in the last fortnight.
The number given - 2,494 includes what the government call pillar one (hospital staff and patients) and pillar two (community testing results).
Of this total, there have been 658 cases confirmed across all settings in the past two weeks.
Figures included in the daily Department for Health and Social Care include both sets of results at a national, but not local level.
HOW?
Asked whether events like Eid or the Black Lives Matter protests, which have each taken place within the potential incubation period, might have contributed, Mr Browne said: “I wouldn’t like to say because at this stage we just don’t know.
“My colleagues at Public Health England are carrying out some retrospective research to try to establish what may have contributed to the increase.”
Schools also returned in the past fortnight but Mr Browne was quick to rule that out as a contributing factor.
“What we are not seeing is an increase in the number of school-age children testing positive, in fact we are hardly seeing children in the figures at all.
“When we look at the data the cases increase with age range. We know that this has impacted on older age groups and the vulnerable.”
Milder cases and more testing available are also things that Mr Browne said should be considered.
“There are obviously some caveats to this but largely these cases are in younger people, with milder cases that are not necessarily requiring hospital treatment.
“This is where testing comes in, it allows us to see where the cases are and target those areas if we need to.”