Any idea what will happen in leicester?

[Blubellsarebells]

I work in a restaurant so currently on furlough.
Just wondering if anyone's got any guesses about if we will be moving to tier 2 next week?
Am I wishful thinking?
Would love to get back to work and go out for a meal.

I'm guessing we'll stay in tier 3, yes numbers have come down a bit in the city but they fluctuate a lot and let's face it, for whatever reason the Government seem to want us to stay in lockdown for ever. I don't know if it's because Soulsby is such a pain in the ass or what but we seem to be doomed.

In a way it would be nice to have a Christmas off from the absolute chaos it will be if we open for 5 days before.
And ive got vulnerable family member coming to me on xmas day so would take some worry out of that.
Im just getting impatiant to know, really feel that we've been forgotten about.
Fingers crossed for ooening in january.
Would be nice to make some money, furlough pay is ok with no childcare and travel costs but I rely on tips to make life comfortable.

I think we have been forgotten. Numbers are still really poor. There is not a chance in hell of us coming out of T3 this time around.

We have somehow not made the very long list of areas where rapid response testing has been rolled out, or where secondary school children without symptoms are being encouraged to test.

Apparently the rapid response testing was allocated based on an individual area successfully bidding for it. So someone in Leicester is completely incompetent and our government have let that happen despite the fact that we have been locked down harder and longer than anywhere else. It's appalling, and everyone I know who usually votes conservative is suddenly feeling very thoughtful.

Yes I thought all tier 3 areas were getting testing.
Thats not happened at all.
So the numbers are probably worse than they look because still only symptomatic cases are testing.
The mayor seems to have gone quiet.
Where is he?

I’m in Oldham and I think we’ve been in T3 slightly longer than you. Yay. We win.

My understanding is that it is actually more to do with hospital capacity than rates of infection and currently our local hospitals are rammed so we’ve got no hope of coming out of T3.

@JayAlfredPrufrock hmm maybe you've been in tier 3 longer, but people in Leicester were locked back down in June before tiers had been 'invented'. At that time our shops, restaurants etc were closed again.

We have had more weeks with things closed and no one allowed to meet anyone outside of their household than anyone else- which feels like a constant lockdown.

It's not a competition of course, but I'm pretty sure Leicester is in last place and little is being done to assist us.

Surely all level 3 areas should get the rapid testing especially places like Leicester, it shouldn’t be bidding for it. Seems absurd.

This bidding business is beyond reason .Just why introduce that hurdle ?
As Boys3 said on another thread

"I’m not sure of the value of the bidding system. The necessary data to make a judgement on need and priority is already there, but instead let’s

• spend time and resource developing a bidding process,
• create a competitive environment for local councils some who may well be better resourced than others to complete the no doubt Byzantine bidding process
• have some witless wonders in Whitehall who most likely could not find Wythenshaw, Worksop, Wetwang, or Wansbeck on a map, undertake some sort of assessment and scoring of these bids
• communicate, or quite possibly not, the outcome back to each Council
• finally several weeks later possibly issue some tests to these areas.

The definition of dystopia"

and AFAIK the flow testing now offered to secondary schools in some London boroughs involved no bidding .

It doesnt feel very fair and we dont seem to be getting a mention at all now.
We've been forgotten about.
We've not been allowed to mix with other households indoors since march.
Is it any wonder people are giving up following the rules.

@peridito you're right, no bidding process for the secondary school testing, only for the rapid resting set up. Neither of which we have been given.

It feels like our local leaders are letting us down, and the government are letting it happen. It's been a brutal amount of time and we now see what extra measures are available, but for some reason not for us.

I'm absolutely not surprised that people have started to ignore the rules it feels so cruel to have let this continue without extra help for so long. People have been isolating since March!

Well I've just got back from The Highcross and it's clear that people have given up on 'the rules' at least half the people walking around werent wearing masks or had them hanging off their chins, most were wearing them to get past the guy on the front door then whipping them off.

People walking right on your backside or shoving past constantly, even though it wasn't that busy and would have been absolutely possible to wait 3 seconds and give people a bit of space.

I give up.

@JayAlfredPrufrock it hasn't been very well communicated outside Leicester but we've never been out of additional restrictions since March.

At no point since the beginning of the first lock down has it been permitted for people in Leicester to socialise in any indoor setting. We had a 2 week period when the tiers were introduced in October where we were tier 2 and could have people round to our garden but that's it and we were then straight into tier 3 following lockdown 2.0.

Those of us who have been following the rules haven't been able to go round to someone's house, or meet in a cafe/pub for 9 months now.

Is it worth someone from the area setting up some sort of petition going for Leicester to get some much needed support to reduce figures? It’s understandable if compliance is poor after so long under restrictions. Maybe some rapid testing in the area might show the people of Leicester the gov hasn’t forgotten them.

I’m sure the gov has forgotten them but a petition which gets over the 100k, so has to be debated, might make them remember

I’m in greater Manchester and it’s been tough but even worse for Leicester and they are seemingly forgotten by the gov and the press