What is going on in Bolton?

[Cloudsurfing]

Over 300/100,000 rate now, and still rising. This surely can't just be the Indian variant can it? Nowhere else seems to be this high and 86 counties now have the variant. Will the government do a local lockdown? surely they can't let people meet inside when cases are so high there?

[Torvean]

If that was a scenario in Scotland you'd have restrictions put back. It happens if we get 50 out of 100 000. 2 areas were kept at level 3 while rest are at 2 or 1. BoJo is an idiot. Saying its too late to cancel as ppl would be disappointed.

[x2boys]

Who knows ?i live in Bolton my postcode is the post code of most concern ,,they say it's peoplr who are eligible not having the vaccine 🤷

[SavingsQuestions]

Wow that's really high!

[SonnetForSpring]

Madness. History repeating itself.

[Musntgrumble2021]

I heard on the radio that the hospitals have a high number admitted wit Covid who could have had the vaccine but didn’t.

Wasn’t Bolton where there was a ‘think for yourself’ kind of anti-government propaganda/conspiracy type stuff going on? So sad that misinformation can spread so widely and gave such a devastating effect. If that’s what has happened.

[Lucidas]

@Musntgrumble2021

I heard on the radio that the hospitals have a high number admitted wit Covid who could have had the vaccine but didn’t.

Wasn’t Bolton where there was a ‘think for yourself’ kind of anti-government propaganda/conspiracy type stuff going on? So sad that misinformation can spread so widely and gave such a devastating effect. If that’s what has happened.

I was about to post a similar comment.. (#thinkingforyourself back in the autumn)

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/sep/20/covid-scepticism-behind-high-bolton-infection-rate-says-local-mp

[CharlotteRose90]

People are mixing and going out and about. I live 20 mins from there and sadly a local lockdown won’t change f all. They will still go out same as last time.

[TipsySquirrel]

I have family in Bolton. It’s been bad all the way through and they had a local lockdown pretty much all of last year. The extended lockdown up there is having a big impact on people now and I think even if they do announce a local lockdown, I don’t think people will follow it. Everyone I know in Bolton is just done with it.

There are only a few people from Bolton that I know who haven’t had the vaccine and that’s because they’re not in the age groups that have been called up. I live in the east of England but have colleagues across the country. Age groups in Bolton have been called up before other areas have. They’ve done quite a few vacation bus sessions to just catch people, even outside of the age groups. I know over the weekend they’ve increased the vaccine centres and were just telling people to come get vaccinated, which seems to have been taken up by quite a lot of people. So I don’t understand why the vaccine rollout is supposedly so low. I think rather than local lockdowns, it would be much more effective to examine the demographics of those groups under vaccinated and work with them to understand their challenges to the vaccine.

[fairynick]

Cases throughout greater Manchester were going down as Bolton’s went up. Now that’s changing, and throughout Greater Manchester cases are rising again. I live in a really low case area and travel into Bolton to work.
If you look at the cases, the majority are coming from schools/colleges. I think shutting the schools would be the best way to help the spread, but also think that would be such a shame to happen.

[LucilleTheVampireBat]

I heard on the radio that the hospitals have a high number admitted wit Covid who could have had the vaccine but didn’t

Did you really? I wonder why the radio are spreading misinformation. 19 people are in hospital. 19. The population of Bolton is near 200,000. That really isn't a "high number".

[CassandraTrotter]

Wasn't just local radio. The BBC this morning said the majority in hospital with covid in Bolton we're eligible but chose not to have the vaccine.

Me and dh commute into Bolton for work. It is worrying.

[babbaloushka]

@LucilleTheVampireBat

I heard on the radio that the hospitals have a high number admitted wit Covid who could have had the vaccine but didn’t

Did you really? I wonder why the radio are spreading misinformation. 19 people are in hospital. 19. The population of Bolton is near 200,000. That really isn't a "high number".

I think the poster meant that a proportionally high number of those admitted with COVID had declined the vaccine.

[StealthPolarBear]

If the overall process isn't working what then? How long do we lockdown for? At what point do we get to decide?

[MistressoftheDarkSide]

Is this MP lying or mistaken?

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/18/vaccine-hesitancy-narrative-fuelling-divisions-in-bolton-says-mp

"Yasmin Qureshi, the Labour MP for Bolton South East, said ministers were peddling a “dangerous” narrative and that she had already received emails from people blaming residents for travelling overseas – and potentially bringing back Covid– “when we British people stayed at home”.

She added: “Already you can see an element of racism coming through. [The government narrative] is really unhelpful. It wasn’t vaccine hesitancy; it’s that it wasn’t rolled out well enough and this Conservative government is blaming everyone but themselves and it causes tension”.

Dr Zubaida Haque, a member of Independent Sage and former interim director Runnymede Trust, said it was “misleading and unethical of the health secretary, Matt Hancock to suggest that vaccine hesitancy is driving the rapid spread of the B1617.2, so-called Indian variant given his conclusions are based on a sample of 18 hospitalisations in Bolton where six out of 18 people did take the vaccine”.

Case rates in Bolton are higher among those aged under 40, who were not eligible to receive their first dose of a vaccine until 12 May. Guardian analysis found that there were 380 cases per 100,000 among under 40s in the previous week, compared with 163 among those aged 40 and over. Both rates are more than 10 times higher than in England as a whole, but the gap between the two age groups is broadly similar to the national picture."

[Whichjab]

@CassandraTrotter

Wasn't just local radio. The BBC this morning said the majority in hospital with covid in Bolton we're eligible but chose not to have the vaccine.

Me and dh commute into Bolton for work. It is worrying.

Majority is an interesting word, if 51 were unvaccinated and 49 were double vaccinated you could say the majority of covid patients were unvaccinated. I just wish they were clearer

[Nohomemadecandles]

I don't think it's refusal so much as lack of access /information. I say this as someone whose husband has been vaccinating in Bolton this week.

People are keen & taking it now they have a way to get it without apps or travelling out of area.

Please don't fan any more racism or mockery on it.

[Nohomemadecandles]

There's a difference in being eligible and not yet being vaccinated and choosing not to be. Stop letting the media firm your opinion.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

I think the mp is right, it’s the vaccine hesitancy theory that’s wrong. The vaccine stats for Bolton up to 9th May look pretty much the same as the national average. And the U.K. has pretty low levels of vaccine refusal anyway.
One of the Bolton MPs has been campaigning for better access to vaccines for a while apparently. Lots of people who wanted vaccines couldn’t get one.

I’ve got a feeling the vaccine refusal narrative is just to distract from the real issue of the government not closing the border soon enough.

[Alonim]

There’s a lot of confusion and misinformation with this Bolton situation.

Could people living in Bolton throw any light on it?

[Alonim]

I’ve got a feeling the vaccine refusal narrative is just to distract from the real issue of the government not closing the border soon enough.

Ah. That makes sense.

[Nohomemadecandles]

So, the areas they are saying are highest rates are areas with high % of Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi heritage families. Mostly British with a high number of multi generational households. Some other migrant families. Some of those areas are fairly deprived, some are just normal terraced streets. Some are bigger houses. One ward actually includes the wealthiest area in Bolton - Heaton- that shares a ward with Deane.
They are the mill areas where 1st gen immigrants were sent to support industry in war time when we were short of men.

As much as it's a bit ghetto-ised, it's not a "bad" or "rough" area as such. And we owe those 1st gen a debt of gratitude.

But the lack of access to travel out of area, language barriers etc have hampered vaccine uptake.

The willingness to be vaccinated however, is evident now.

[User135644]

Thousands crowded together last week to celebrate Bolton football club's promotion.

[x2boys]

@Musntgrumble2021

I heard on the radio that the hospitals have a high number admitted wit Covid who could have had the vaccine but didn’t.

Wasn’t Bolton where there was a ‘think for yourself’ kind of anti-government propaganda/conspiracy type stuff going on? So sad that misinformation can spread so widely and gave such a devastating effect. If that’s what has happened.

Yeah there is a lot of scepticism,just read the comments section on the Bolton news,but there is a lot of scepticism on this board too ,so o don't think it's just that ,although clearly it doesn't help.

[x2boys]

@CharlotteRose90

People are mixing and going out and about. I live 20 mins from there and sadly a local lockdown won’t change f all. They will still go out same as last time.

Whilst I agree ,and it frustrates me being a Bolton resident ,I see it on here all the time ,people mixing households ,not sticking to the guidelines so it's not just Bolton

[RedcurrantPuff]

@StealthPolarBear

If the overall process isn't working what then? How long do we lockdown for? At what point do we get to decide?

Exactly this

And what relevance are “cases” anyway? I thought it was hospitalisations that would be a concern

If the hospitals aren’t being overrun what’s the problem? We aren’t meant to be stopping every single person getting it dying. He said all along before this variant appeared that opening would increase hospital numbers and deaths.