Leicester facing full lockdown

[Ifailed]

According to the BBC www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-53206506.
Anyone living there - how do you feel about this? Personally I would feel terribly trapped, almost like I was being punished, like when teacher's used to keep a whole class behind due to the behaviour of a minority.

Blaming the outbreak in Leicester solely on the asian community is racist imo.
Who has done that?

@SecretSpAD I would think you friend should be ok, I have a couple of family members who work at the LRI and they have been really good at keeping possible Covid patients separated from everyone else. They are really putting a lot of effort into other care and services getting back to full strength.

So, Babyroobs, what was the matter with the person you were particularly concerned about?

Blaming the outbreak in Leicester solely on the asian community is racist imo.

Good thing no one has done that then. As we know, the BAME population is much more likely to have a poor outcome from Covid, we also know they're, sadly, more likely to catch it for whatever reason. We are doing them no favours by shivering and avoiding this knowledge for fear of being labelled racist if we discuss those facts and what might be the causes. If we didn't talk about it no doubt threads would be started lamenting the lack of care and discussion

Local lockdown will be some schools and or businesses shutting and people in those businesses or schools told to self isolate. It won't be an entire city not allowed out of their houses and military patrolling the streets despite what some people's fantasies might be.

Ah - thanks, TorysSuck. Interesting that hospital cases are stable or still going down, but that it's the community "positives" which are increasing - I wonder how much of it's down to increased testing?

It does sound like some of the residents haven't been socially distancing though as described up thread and if you tend to be more susceptible to the virus, why would you risk it

can't have it all ways.

an absolute dirty hole of a place

I know Leicester well and think this is a bit unfair. Like any big city there's good areas and bad, poorer demographic and wealthier. It certainly underwent a major refurbishment in the city centre in the last 10-20 years and was in the running for UK City of Culture. Two universities, vibrant sports and arts scene, diverse, open spaces and good road links....I'm beginning to sound a bit like the tourist board! It ain't all rough.

Leicester city is no worse than any other city centre in terms of 'rough' areas and anti social behaviour. I think it's better than Nottingham for example. (I'm from Nottingham and Nottingham has a very nice centre but lots of well publicised problems with gun crime, poverty, drugs, violence ...)
I'm Leicestershire county I don't think we will get the lockdown as county numbers are really low HOWEVER there will be a lot of people that have been travelling into the city centre for shopping, work (schools, hospitals etc) so there could be an impact on surrounding areas.
It doesn't massively worry me in terms of having to rake a couple of steps back - I'm feeling a bit anxious with the swift relaxing of lockdown anyway- but I'm so praying that schools are back to normal in September and it worries me that we are not really getting on top of things still.
The horse fair was quite a well known traveller event- not agricultural.

I think some businesses will be told to pull their socks up. My relative has been pulled off normal duties today and is the stand in COVID marshall at his work. He's going around checking everyone with a temperature gun, and checking they have and are using PPE correctly. This sort of thing should be part of procedures by now.

@CallmeAngelina

Blaming the outbreak in Leicester solely on the asian community is racist imo. Who has done that?

Babyroobs seems to think so. I suggest you read her posts.

Whoever said they're stocking up on loo roll please don't encourage another lot of the ridiculous panic buying we had-
Back in March ....that created more stress than the actual virus for a lot of people .

@unlikelytobe

an absolute dirty hole of a place

I know Leicester well and think this is a bit unfair. Like any big city there's good areas and bad, poorer demographic and wealthier. It certainly underwent a major refurbishment in the city centre in the last 10-20 years and was in the running for UK City of Culture. Two universities, vibrant sports and arts scene, diverse, open spaces and good road links....I'm beginning to sound a bit like the tourist board! It ain't all rough.

You are completely correct. I guess I only see the worst parts - the antisocial behaviour, open drug dealing around the Humberstone gate area, multiple drunks slumped by the haymarket bus station at mid day. the abbey street car park littered with drug parapenalia and the lifts stinking or urine that have to be washed and bleached down every morning. But yes there are some nice areas, just not in the city centre. Where are the nice open spaces? There has been a truly horrific murder at Abbey park in the past few years and a truly horrific serious rape and attempted murder at Victoria park and pretty much every other park and open space. My local country park Watermead I have always felt safe walking my dogs there until recently when two teenage girls were attacked with glass bottles and a dog walker assaulted for no reason, not to mention a vicious rape a few months ago. In my opinion the whole place is getting worse.

Babyroobs seems to think so. I suggest you read her posts.

Can you quote the bits you find problematic?

I doubt we will see local restrictions that are any stronger than the peak of nationwide restrictions were. And keep in mind that if your workplace is open and you cannot work from home, you were always allowed to go to work no matter what the job was. It seems to be a common misconception that only "essential" workers could work.

@anon5000 not once has Babyroobs mentioned race

New walk is really nice to walk down and the main shopping areas are a lot better than some cities where it's just empty boarded up shops. The dmu campus area is a hidden gem in the city centre and there's a some really great museums.
I really like abbey park
Any big city will have a huge variety of individuals and you will get some anti social behaviour and crime in densely populated areas but I'm really fond of the city

I live in a village close to Leicester. The horse fair was horrendous. Hundreds and hundreds of people gathered in two large fields, staying in caravans without any social distancing whatsoever. They have come from far and wide. The fair is held every year but because other similar events were cancelled elsewhere, many many more of the travelling community have arrived here and set up camp.

Yesterday several roads in the local area where gridlocked or closed as they were racing horses. This includes a busy dual carriageway. They were also stoning people who were boating or kayaking on the river and visiting local shops and supermarkets in huge groups.

Local people have been shocked, intimidated, and frightened by the size of the event and the lack of social distancing. Police did nothing except close roads. I think they were totally out of their depth.

The shocking thing is that our local council gave permission for this to go ahead. It is so very different to an outdoor market as people arrive in caravans and stay for a long weekend. It's like an enormous festival.

So now these people will travel on somewhere else potentially spreading the virus.

I hope they lock down leicester in what ever way is needed. It would be hugely in inconvenient but that's not really the point. Sadly though there are so so so many people taking no notice of social distancing at all that unless a heavy handed approach is taken I don't think it will help.

I used to love visiting friends in Leicester- a very friendly, multi-cultural city. I was shocked and depressed by my most recent visit. Terraced streets where planning has allowed any old windows being installed, wheelie bins and rubbish everywhere and the whole place looking like a complete shithole. It seems like a place that’s really let itself go. Civic pride seems to have gone down the toilet.

I'm on the city centre boundary, I live on the same street as a lovely primary school and have 3 parks, a community orchard, 2 nature reserves and a busy retail street within 20 mins walk.

Leicester has the same drug problems that every city has, and they have increased inline with government cuts to mental health and homeless services.

Blaming the outbreak in Leicester solely on the asian community is racist imo

Well yes it would be.......apart from the fact that nobody has " blamed " anybody or mentioned " the asian community".

As for my comment re horse fairs, no I don't like to vilify gypsies. I wonder how a situation with crowds of people trading animals could be safe.

We have been told there are disproprtionate numbers of members of BAME affected by COVID and Leicester has a (very roughly) 50/50 split of white and non white. It is not unreasonable to wonder if there may be a link.

rosie. Thank you.

@ShootsFruitAndLeaves

> Leicester has one of the highest BAME percentages - way over 50% IIRC. Potential link?

No it doesn't. It is approx 50% white (50.5% as of 2011). And 'BAME' is a bit daft when Leicester is specifically Indian (28%).

There is no evidence that Indian people or those of other any other races are more likely to catch covid-19, but employment differences will affect things hugely.

Statements like these aren't that helpful:

'Leicester East MP Claudia Webbe has called for a lockdown due to a "perfect storm" of poverty, positive tests and higher ethnic diversity.'

It's likely that poverty spreads the virus easier, but it's positive tests or not that are the determinant for shutting down.

And not necessarily the number of positive tests.

Leicester has what 350,000 people?

Correct measure would be the estimated % of the population that are positive. And then maybe on a local level shut down pubs, workplaces, places of worship, etc.

I'm really glad you've written this @ShootsFruitAndLeaves, I am deeply disconcerted about the way this is being reported. Covid does not spread more easily from/to ethnic minorities. It spreads more easily from/to POOR PEOPLE, eg people who live in overcrowded housing and people who are key workers.

I was at a seminar recently which sought to explain the higher death rates from COVID in BAME groups. It pointed out that all these groups have nothing in common with each other that would increase their risk of death apart from their underlying quality of health. So why would that underlying poor health be common to BAME groups? Because they are more likely to live in poor housing, face structural racism limiting access to healthcare, and be deprived. Its nothing to do with being BAME per se though people have attempted to explain it as being genetic etc. Sadly it comes down to racism and no we are seeing more of the same, vis, 'it's their fault for spreading it'.

Of course the horse fair is a concern. Just like Cheltenham was, and all the football matches that were allowed to take place before we locked down and wasn't there a concert too?