Matt Hancock chairs meeting on local lockdowns

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Health Secretary Matt Hancock today chaired a meeting to discuss how to move forward with local lockdowns around the UK.

The Joint Biosecurity Centre, a government body set up to handle the coronavirus crisis, held a ‘Gold Command’ meeting to discuss lockdowns.

In it the Health Secretary and his chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, will take the final decisions on whether to continue existing lockdowns and possible new ones. 

Mr Hancock said the Government has been ‘working very, very closely’ with public health authorities in areas already locked down. Decisions from the meeting are expected to be publicly announced tomorrow, Friday. 

There are concerns that England’s second city, Birmingham, could be the next place to face tighter lockdown rules as cases of Covid-19 are rising there. 

Council officials in the Midlands city, home to more than a million people, were this week given extra powers to shut down bars and restaurants that don’t make themselves Covid-safe, and will also be able to close parks and cancel weddings.

Rates of infection have risen in more than 150 local authorities across the country in the past week, according to an analysis of official data, with places like Oxford, Redditch and Kettering seeing infection rates creep up. 

Leicester, the first place to go into a lockdown, still has stricter rules than most of the rest of the country because the virus was out of control there.

And more recently, large parts of the North West have had to follow suit, with Greater Manchester, Blackburn and West Yorkshire worst affected.

Birmingham was last week touted to be the next place to go into lockdown but the Government has so far held off the drastic decision. 

In its last report issued on Friday, Public Health England confirmed Birmingham was receiving ‘enhanced support’ from the Government because of its rising infection rate.

There were 30.2 cases per 100,000 people being diagnosed per day in the city in the week from August 7 to August 13. The rate has tripled in the past month.

This was higher than some areas already locked down, such as Bury and Trafford in Manchester, but a local lockdown has so far been avoided.

Birmingham City Council announced this week it will have the ability to investigate reports of places failing to follow Covid-19 guidance.

Council officials and police officers will be able to issue formal warnings to any which are breaking the rules while repeat offenders could be forced to close.

The powers also include the ability to ban events like weddings and funerals if there are concerns about the number of people who may attend while parks and other outdoor spaces could also be shut in the interests of public health.

Councils in the North of England that are already coping with lockdown rules are not happy that residents are being subject to stricter rules.

Bradford, Calderdale and Kirklees councils in Yorkshire have all issued statements calling for their local lockdowns to come to an end.

The Government’s messaging on local coronavirus restrictions has been ‘confused and bungled’, they said.

The leaders of those councils joined their counterparts in Greater Manchester in criticising proposals to tackle the virus on a ward-by-ward basis. 

Last week, Mr Hancock announced a more targeted approach to Covid-19 restrictions in which the views of MPs would also be sought to gain ‘the maximum possible local consensus’.

He added this would allow local councils to focus resources on the wards which need more targeted intervention in order to drive infection rates down.

In a statement, councillors Susan Hinchcliffe, Tim Swift and Shabir Pandor, the leaders of Bradford, Calderdale and Kirklees respectively, said: ‘Our infection rates have come down significantly this week, although they are still high.

‘Over the last few months and weeks we, as leaders, have taken difficult decisions and directed significant resource in our councils to make this happen. 

‘However, throughout this time Government messaging has been confused and bungled.

‘The latest shift in Government messaging that happened last week was that they inferred they wanted to see more localised restrictions, varying them ward by ward rather than by local authority areas.

‘To add to the confusion, Government want to review and change these place by place weekly, leading to inconsistency in restrictions across the North.

‘In the latest guidance from Government there is a presumption that wards with a low number of cases will start to revert to the national restrictions this week.

‘Adding and subtracting restrictions ward by ward makes the already confused local regulations almost impossible to understand for residents so it begs the question whether restrictions across partial geography can be of any use at all?

‘On top of this, people’s patience is wearing thin with the confusion. They need to know that the restrictions are fair otherwise they won’t keep to them.’

They called on the Government to lift restrictions in their three council areas in line with the rest of England so that messaging to the public would be ‘clearer’. 

The Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has also voiced concerns about input from MPs and cautioned that ‘some people were playing politics at a local level with these issues’.

Political leaders in Stockport and Bolton reached a consensus to ask the Government to follow Wigan, Rossendale and Darwen and remove current restrictions on social gatherings in homes.

Mr Burnham said restrictions in Oldham, Manchester, Rochdale, Bury, Tameside, Salford and Trafford should remain for now.

Leaders in Bury said the borough was in the ‘last chance saloon’ at avoiding going into further lockdown after a sixth weekly rise in infection rates.

Infection rates are rising in dozens of places across England, with a Press Association analysis of PHE data showing that rates are up in more than 150 council areas.

Some of those with increases to the highest rates include Oxford, Redditch, Kettering, Windsor and Maidenhead, Hackney & the City of London, Blaby in Leicestershire and Dacorum in Hertfordshire.

In Oxford the rate of infection has hit 30.2 cases per 100,000 people, which is higher than some areas already in lockdown. A week ago it was 19.7, by comparison.

And Redditch has seen a dramatic spike in the past week with its rate rising from 8.2 to 27.