Cheshire leaders are calling for tougher measures to be implemented to tighten the current lockdown restrictions.
Leaders of Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Chester, Warrington and Halton Councils, the Police and Crime Commissioner and the Chair of the Local Enterprise Partnership have written to the Secretary of State for Health and the Secretary of State for Housing and Local Government setting out their views on the current Covid lockdown which they describe as "the minimum necessary to address the alarming acceleration of the virus that we have seen across our communities".
However, they state that the "stay at home" message "is undermined by ambiguity between regulations and guidelines; making public compliance more difficult to secure and creating challenges for our enforcement authorities".
Would you like to see the lockdown retrictions tightened? Share you views via the comment box below.
The letter below was sent to Matt Hancock, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, and Robert Jenrick, Secretary of State for Housing Communities and Local Government, on Tuesday, 12th January.
Dear Secretaries of State
We are writing to you jointly to set out the views of partners across Cheshire on the current lockdown arrangements, concerns about the impact on schools and our NHS, and progress in the deployment of testing and vaccines.
We support the need for a lockdown. It is the minimum necessary to address the alarming acceleration of the virus that we have seen across our communities and address the deeply concerning pressures on our hospitals.
However, the regulations have left too many areas of social and economic interaction subject to uncertainty. Last Spring there was widespread public compliance with a simple and effective message. In contrast this time, the clarity of the "stay at home" message is undermined by ambiguity between regulations and guidelines; making public compliance more difficult to secure and creating challenges for our enforcement authorities. For example, regulations enable people to exercise far from home, congregate in beauty-spots and public places, and travel for click-and-collect shopping. The more liberal interpretation of lockdown in the current regulations means that many more people are required to work away from home, increasing the risks that their communities will continue to be disproportionately affected. Travel in private and public transport is more significant than in the previous lockdowns. We also have evidence that mask-wearing is not sufficiently enforceable in indoor public places, or in outdoor areas where people are in close proximity.
We would support additional national measures that tighten these areas further, to be implemented alongside further financial support for businesses and their employees, and the self-employed.
The process for partial closure of schools was chaotic and poorly communicated by government, leaving our school staff, parents and pupils to deal with a terrible conflict between the education of children and the protection of public health. Our teachers and support staff, supported by our council teams, have been nothing short of heroic. But the constantly changing definition of critical workers and vulnerable children, applied inconsistently between schools facing different local circumstances, has again created confusion. We would urge the government to settle on a clear set of guidelines based on medical evidence, which schools can apply flexibly in support of their local circumstances.
We would also oppose a premature lifting of the lockdown. Cheshire experienced a rapid escalation between tiers during the Christmas period, which created real suffering amongst our local business community. Nothing would be more destabilising to business than more uncertainty about the regulations they will face. We support retaining lockdown until we see a sustained period of reduced infection, the immediate pressures on our hospitals have been resolved, and the vaccine has protected those who are at highest risk of hospital admission and serious illness. We should then exit with a clear strategy in place for recovery and renewal, supported by additional investment in our economy and communities.
We welcome the extension of asymptomatic testing under local management, and also the recognition by government that this cannot provide a "freedom pass" to breach the lockdown rules. We will deliver testing locally as part of a wider public health response, with tests made available only to those with unavoidable and repeated contact outside their households; including schools, care homes, critical businesses and front-line public services. We urge government to ensure a sufficient supply of lateral flow devises to meet this need, and to ensure councils have the funding required to deliver the programme effectively and safely. We expect this to remain in place long after the lockdown is eased. Public health programmes will need sustained investment, long after the peak of infection is passed.
Finally, we welcome the progress being made to roll out the vaccine. Councils are playing an important role in support of the local NHS, and we are committed to moving through the priority groups as quickly as possible. More local discretion would enable us to target specific communities, groups and individuals, based on evidence of the local public health benefit. We regret that community-level data is still not available publicly, despite the huge public interest in understanding the rollout of the vaccine locally, and the links to our local outbreak plans. We urge you to learn lessons from the rollout of local track and trace which has been hampered by excessive command-and-control, and the confusion created by the recent letter sent to some over-80s about the regional vaccine sites. For most of our over-80s, attendance at the Manchester city centre site is not a viable or safe option, and we will need a greater focus on more accessible and community-based sites if progress is to be made rapidly.
This letter reflects our commitment to play our part in the next stage of response to this terrible virus. A strong and flexible local response is critical to success, and we urge you to respond quickly to the issues we have raised.
Yours sincerely,
Councillor Sam Corcoran - Leader of the Council, Leader of the Labour Group Cheshire East Council
Councillor Craig Browne - Deputy Leader, Leader of the Independent Group Cheshire East Council
Councillor Louise Gittins - Leader of Cheshire West and Chester Council
Councillor Russ Bowden - Leader of Warrington Borough Council
Clare Hayward MBE DL - Chair Cheshire and Warrington Local Enterprise Partnership
David Keane - Police and Crime Commissioner for Cheshire
Councillor Rob Polhill - Leader of Halton Borough Council
Photo: Councillor Sam Corcoran - Leader of the Council and Councillor Craig Browne - Deputy Leader (taken prior to the Covid pandemic.
Comments
Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.
We don't need tighter guidelines, we just need our council leaders to understand what are rules, what are guidelines and enforce/encourage those. Any time spent outside will see groups of people congregated and a mix of obviously multiple households. Personal responsibility is the key here.
For goodness sake, don't give these typically ineffective people any more power.
Personally, I think the social distancing, washing hands etc and not flouting the rules is eminently sensible. I suggest the lockdowns are becoming an ineffective response and it is now a populist bandwagon leaders seem to have jumped on around the globe.
Goodness knows how many deaths we face downstream with undetected serious illnesses like cancer, Heart attacks etc. History will judge this lack of leadership badly.
I am very keen on vaccination and I really hope it turns the tide.
I am a Covid survivor by the way.
I am aware this is off message for many, but is my considered opinion which many people share but too scared to express. I do respect others opinions.
It feels like this disease does seem to chart its own course and immunity is the only chance we have whether by catching it or from a jab.
There is no empirical evidence that lockdowns are of any effect(Recent survey from Canada being the latest corroboration) and no reference is made to the massive negative impacts associated with societal shutdown.
Mask wearing is not being flouted and the suggestion that outdoor wearing is even required is contrary to any Governmental diktat both now and previous.
The council should be thanking its community and pressing the Government for restrictions to be lifted as soon as the NHS is able to cope with cases and all top 4 vulnerable groups have been vaccinated. To push now for further tightening when cases in both Cheshire East and West are beginning to flatten is a kick in the teeth for the tax payer - both our local MP(Esther McVey) and central Govt are not even suggesting it.
Stop treating the public like deplorables and leave Covid regulations to central Govt who have the (supposed) experts at hand and can be relied on to make enough bad decisions of their own.
From BBC website Jan 13
Cheshire East
Find out more about the restrictions in your area
406 cases per 100,000 people in the latest week 3 Jan-9 Jan. The average area in England had 526*.
1,558
cases in the latest week 3 Jan-9 Jan
-217
compared with the previous week
This government should be ashamed.
Economy trashed
PCR and Lateral Flow tests not fit for purpose.
Mental health and other fatal diseases left untreated
Faked modelling, massaged death figures and death certificates
Shelter the at risk elderly let the rest of us take common sense precautions and let us begin to take back our lives.
This is further evidence that, when some normality is resumed a root and branch overhaul of central and local government, OURNHS, the education system and the police "service" must be ruthlessly undertaken with all those who have attended "Common Purpose" courses banned from any publicly funded employment or public office. You people are elected or appointed to GOVERN not to rule and are handsomely rewarded out of our pockets. Try to remember that!!
For those of you still believing the "cases" of "covid" please access and read the Corman Drosten Review and the conclusions about the ludicrous 45 cycle RT-PCR testing.
Of course, in an effort to save the NHS we're seeing a huge increase in mental and other serous health issues.
The NHS exists because we work and pay taxes. If much of the nation is unemployed and many of us are left with serious health issues, how will we have saved the NHS?
https://www.cheshire-live.co.uk/news/chester-cheshire-news/cheshire-mp-voted-against-lockdown-19577075
Obviously, this comment has not aged very well but it does highlight the problem. With a lack of real evidence or “proof” about this new virus, peoples opinions fill the void. So, all governments are walking a narrow tightrope of trying to suppress infection rates while minimising damage to the economy and all based on the best guess opinions of experts.
Therefore, letters like this from the council leaders are well intentioned but just add to the noise of opinion and confusion. Instead, I think we should let our real experts guide us. They are doing the best of an impossible job, so let them get on with it and stop undermining them by questioning every decision they make. If council leaders have doubts, then they should raise them in private with the government and not in open letters like this.
Some of the other points our armchair experts on wilmslow.co.uk have regularly made can also now be reviewed with hindsight:
- Suicide rates have not “increased dramatically”. They have hardy risen at all.
https://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=51861
- UK excess deaths in 2020 were the highest since WWII. The total excess also closely
corresponds with the deaths prescribed to Covid-19. This shows Coronavirus deaths
are being correctly diagnosed and are not coincidental "within 28 days" of a virus test.
- The government is funding Covid-19 activity with £400 billion of borrowing at a 10 year
fixed rate of 0.32%. This debt will cost £1.28bn a year to service from the
governments £850bn a year spending. Therefore, it is hardly “bankrupting future
generations” or "ruining their lives".
- Average hospital treatment for Covid-19 is 8 days. Average knee replacement patients
only get 4 days. So Covid-19 patients are very sick and don’t “just have the flu”.
- Brazil tried Covid-19 herd immunity in Manaus, a city of 2.2 million people. Based on
their experience, the UK would have over 1 million deaths and a paralysed NHS. Our
hospitals are struggling badly with a 5% UK infection rate but it is 75% in “herd
immune” Manaus. How this massive increase of Covid-19 cases would help the NHS
treat more cancer patients is completely unfathomable to me.
- Despite this, death rates in Manaus are now rapidly rising again as the strain has
mutated. Therefore, they may not have herd immunity after all.
- On 7th January the daily death rate from Covid-19 was 1,325 people. Total UK road
traffic deaths for the whole of 2019 was 1,752 people. We don't say "sorry, but people
have to die of something" and stop paying for road safety though.
- Sweden didn't lock down but suffered far more deaths and damage to its economy
than other Scandinavian countries that did lockdown. Fear alone stopped the Swedes
from going out and their hospitality industry has also been decimated. The Swedish
Prime Minister has said "Of course the fact that so many have died can't be
considered as anything other than a failure".
- UK unemployment in February 2020 before lockdown was 3.5%. It is now 4.9%. It was
12.8% in the 1980’s, but we still managed to fund the NHS during that decade.
- The rural economy bounced back very quickly after the Foot & Mouth disease closed it
down in 2001. The UK economy should do likewise. Probably sometime in 2021.
- Over half the worlds population experienced some form of lockdown in 2020. Even in
the year 1666, the villagers of Eyam knew lockdown stopped the spread of disease.
Black death claimed 75% of their lives but they still did it to save others. We are just
being told to stay at home to save others, so is it really too much to ask?
Do people want 1 million unnecessary UK deaths and very slim chance of avoiding a 1.4% increase in unemployment by stopping lockdowns?
I doubt it.
Therefore, we need some form of lockdown. So please just follow the guidelines, keep doing the right thing and get the vaccine whenever it is offered to you. That way we will all come out of this as fast and as best as we can.
Cllr Mark Goldsmith
Residents of Wilmslow
Wilmslow West & Chorley
I completely agree - but talking common sense and providing evidence-based information will be your undoing as a local politician. There’s just no call for it.
Manaus despite having no lockdowns has no excess death rate. It does have a high rate of comorbidities - diabetes and hypertension. Its hospitals are as here normally running at 80% full. There is little sanitation, hardly any running water families are tightly grouped. People die and get disease
in these circumstances normally given a particularly nasty virus you will get seasonal fluctuations in mortality again as here.
The governments borrowing figures you quote are laughable as currently
the deficit is running close to a trillion. We will be paying this off for the next fifty years which by my reckoning wont be done by me but will be by my children and theirs.
I take it my other 8 comments are okay, so of the 3 you mention:
1) Thank you for acknowledging that you do not know the suicide rate for 2020. Therefore, please stop your repeated claims that "The suicide rate has increased dramatically" as you have just confirmed you don't know this.
2) It is summer in Manaus now, so Covid-19 hospitalisations are lower as respiratory diseases fall during warmer weather. However, at its peak in May (their winter) Manaus hospitals were overwhelmed. As the Washington Post said "Brazil’s failure to provide enough hospital beds for the surging number of critical coronavirus patients is yielding increasingly grim results across the country, but particularly in Manaus, a city of 2 million people on the Amazon River deep in the rainforest. More than 2,000 people died in Manaus in April, more than four times the monthly average."
Four times the monthly average deaths in the UK would equate to us experiencing 140,000 Covid-19 deaths in a month. The NHS now has around 110,000 hospital beds plus 11,000 extra ones at Nightingale hospitals (if they can get enough staff to run them though). So I don't think you have to be Carol Vorderman to work out how our NHS system would cope with a Manaus level of infections and deaths. And this is all based on the 1st Covid-19 strain that was less infectious and less deadly than today's version.
3) On 2nd Jan 2021 you told us the truth was out there and to "use your keyboard and seek it out".
Now you say UK "deficit is running close to a trillion". However, a quick Google search shows our national debt is £2.1 trillion and was £1.8 trillion in February 2020 before lockdown. This makes the deficit during lockdown £271bn and the common consensus for the final cost is £400bn. Hence why I quoted the £400bn figure that you stated was "laughable".
Therefore, your latest comments just reinforce my initial point. That strength of feeling by disgruntled laymen who are often blissfully unaware of their own shortcomings is no replacement for facts, specialist knowledge and professional experience.
Thankfully our government agrees, which is why they are following expert advice and continuing with our current lockdown measures.