I live near the boundary of the restricted area and have massive concerns about how this is being handled and what hasn’t been done over the last few weeks. The government said that the measures they’ve put in place in recent weeks haven’t worked, resulting in the new lockdown. The only extra measure that I know of is increased testing, with a walk in centre on Spinney Hill park which is in the area of concern. So anyone, with or without symptoms can go and get tested. Clearly this has resulted in more positive cases being detected, but I don’t believe any extra measures have been put in to support these specific areas and positive individuals, many of whom don’t speak English as their first language.
I work for the local NHS trust and the communications that we got yesterday stated they have not seen a significant increase in admissions recently, contrary to national media. It does seem that cases are in younger people, that although unlikely to need hospital care, may live in a multi-generational household with vulnerable residents. So only time will tell in terms of knock on effect. At present the number of patients in hospital being treated for COVID (across 3 hospitals) is 80ish, compared to over 200 in April at peak.
Word is they didn’t want to take harsh early action as it would have focussed on only the areas of concern, which are all very much high ethnic diversity, which would have increased racial tension in the city. So dithering has resulted in a huge area being affected, with many areas having very low numbers of cases. Residents in these areas are clearly aggrieved that they have been following rules to the letter for months and are now being punished for a minority’s carelessness and government failings. There is also talk of the boundary being decided by postcode and roads leading to and from city, so if police checks are needed they can be implemented easier. All of this is speculation not fact of course!
Reading about legislation due to be passed around enforcement of non essential businesses is concerning. Mainly as it highlights it was never enforceable in the first place! When it comes to ‘advice’ around non-essential travel, this is surely massively subjective? If there is no enforcement of travel outside the area then who is to stop anyone going wherever they like, for ‘essential childcare’ etc? I’ve heard from friends who’d booked to go away from next week or who own their own caravan who have been told they are now not allowed to go, which is fair enough, but one site has said they won’t welcome anyone from leicestershire in or outside the boundary! Such a mess, and when you consider the main areas concerned have quite low car ownership and unlikely to head to the coast for a holiday it will probably just end up penalising a few easy targets rather than focusing on the mass gatherings in houses or parks.
Really seems like Leicester is being used as a test site to see what happens and how people behave. Feels like the government want us all to turn on each other rather then them..
Sorry, that was long.