Local lockdowns

[Sadless]

What are the chances of local lockdowns for places like Bolton and Blackburn. I live not to far away from both these and a local college recently shut because of cases of the Indian varient.
Does any one think if it doesn't improve in these areas they could put these places in lockdown and would it be the towns or the whole of Lancashire.

Thanks
Sal

I am hoping they will just open the vaccination programme up for all in these areas . Just get everyone vaccinated ASAP !

The tiers weren't very effective because people in higher tiers travelled to nearby tier 2 places, which resulted in Lockdown 2 and then Lockdown 3 so I hope we won't do that again.

Whilst the situation is farther on in some areas than others, they have sequenced the Indian variant in 48 different U.K. locations so that would be a lot of local lockdown.

Local lockdowns don’t work as people commute in and out of “areas” for various reasons and unless they set up roadblocks and checkpoints (sarcasm!) people will come and go as they please. The government know this, all they said is they can’t rule anything out which is what they always say about everything. It’s also hugely unfair to target entire towns and counties when the issue lies within specific areas of the community. Speeding up vaccinations in such areas would make more sense. Also from an economic perspective we can’t afford to have the majority of the north west shut down for months on end again. People are also much less willing to stick to the rules now than last summer so I can’t see many taking notice of a local lockdown.

They didn't really work last time. People still travelled between them freely, and the rules about them were nonsense. I was in Tier 2, with a support bubble in Tier 3... so according to the rules I had to live in my Tier 2 area as if I was Tier 3. Um, no thanks.

Seems pointless as they don't work and no one listens to them anyway. Better to ramp up vaccinations in those areas.

I live in Erewash which has one of the highest rates in the country but I don't believe it is the Indian variant here so I don't know where we would stand on that.

They didn't work. What would be better would be to do the things the government has chosen not to do from the start:

• improve test and trace
• support isolation
• proper border measures
• stop trying to get rid of low-cost mitigations like masks in schools

We can't just vaccinate and ignore, it won't work.

They didn’t work last time as a PP said. I live and work in what was a Tier 3 area but a 10 minute walk and I was in Tier 2.

I work in Blackburn ,Darwen and burnley to be harsh these places are doomed .
Loads of mixing people won't follow restrictions and testing .
Friday afternoon it's like there a football match on crowds of people everywhere.
The only saving grace they might have is there's been massive infection rates officially and no doubt even more unofficially ,
That should help with impunity

Impunity, probably not

I think blaming people is exactly what the government want us to do, but the reality is areas where there are higher rates of overcrowded housing, higher-risk work, po erty etc are all vulnerable.

Also what starts in one area won't stay there. Spoiler alert: viruses spread.
The UK needs to stop trying to ignore covid and bloody well start trying to prevent it.

@picturesandpickles
on the train obviously auto correct .

I can only comment on what I see and police did a lot of work in lockdown and found large groups from many many household mixing on most streets and low compliance on restriction.

In these area it's not overcrowded houses the preference is to live in large multi generational households.

@rwalker I was just laughing because I like a funny auto-correct, it wasn't a criticism. I certainly don't belong in pedants corner.

But there's been a lot of unpleasant targeting of people in 'multi generational households' which is basically racism, the issue with covid spread is overcrowding not the age range in a property.

@Sadless

What are the chances of local lockdowns for places like Bolton and Blackburn. I live not to far away from both these and a local college recently shut because of cases of the Indian varient. Does any one think if it doesn't improve in these areas they could put these places in lockdown and would it be the towns or the whole of Lancashire.

Thanks
Sal

Given the news, quite high. As is the chances of the opening in June being delayed. Likewise the risk of the holiday destinations being pulled. But eh ho, we've continued to let people in and out and those poor individuals who need their abroad travel holidays should obviously be our priority, not preventing the risks of further lockdowns and spreads of the more transmissible variants.

@picturesandpickles

Impunity, probably not

I think blaming people is exactly what the government want us to do, but the reality is areas where there are higher rates of overcrowded housing, higher-risk work, po erty etc are all vulnerable.

Also what starts in one area won't stay there. Spoiler alert: viruses spread.
The UK needs to stop trying to ignore covid and bloody well start trying to prevent it.

We've spent over a year in various levels of restrictions and a decent percentage in lockdown. It's not meant to be a permanent state of affairs. We haven't ignored it at all. We've caused a lot of suffering trying to prevent spread especially the most vulnerable in our society. The vaccinations work. It's over.

'rwalker' Obviously there are other factors, which are hard to deal with that contribute towards case numbers, but that's really sad to hear. Not saying people are perfect in my area, but people are very much sticking to the rules here, most are still trying to avoid eachother in the street, town/local retail park are quiet and vaccine uptake is high - case numbers are very low.

God I bloody hope not. What it essentially means is if you're in the north you're fucked. It created a divide last time and it'll be worse this time. People are sick of being punished.

I was just thinking about this and starting a thread about it! So thanks for doing the same.

I think the government needs to re look at its national policy and consider local PH where necessary.

Local lockdowns should have a quick impact like national ones - but I can understand the impact on local economies etc so it seems a sad situation for them.

I keep reading it's been imported by people travelling from India so if that's true with it now on the red list combined with a short local lockdown it should stop transmission of cases.

If they put the whole of Lancashire into another tier system we simply must go out and protest. My area has had 0-2 cases for the last 8 weeks plus and there have been no deaths in Blackpool teaching hospitals for weeks and no cases even admitted for about a week either. It would be completely unfair to look at Lancashire as a whole.

@Waxonwaxoff0

Seems pointless as they don't work and no one listens to them anyway. Better to ramp up vaccinations in those areas.

I live in Erewash which has one of the highest rates in the country but I don't believe it is the Indian variant here so I don't know where we would stand on that.

I think they have opened up vaccines to everyone over 18 in Blackburn.

Some NHS people have moaned about breaking the roolz but it sounds sensible to me.

Also is it just case numbers or are there higher numbers of hospitalisations and deaths in those areas? That is what really matters, although it is also annoying if kids are missing education again because they're all having to isolate.

There is an issue of vaccine hesitancy (at best) in sections of the Asian community in places like Bolton and Blackburn.

twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1392808587488071682?s=2
Apparently surge vaccination has been proposed although not agreed by nhs england

They have opened vaccination to over 18s in parts of Lancashire now

Also various government experts have said before that local lockdown don't work. It was a disaster with the Kent one after all. Just made people travel out of area to go out to eat etc. So I doubt they will try that again.

The government needs to bring in proper financial support for people who need to isolate. And bring in more, smaller, vaccination points (I did see they now have some mobile testing vans - they should have mobile vaccine vans too). If someone's got kids to pick up, a zero hours job to do where it's hard to take time off, and can't drive, then going for a vaccine 15 miles away can take several hours out of the day.

@duffeldaisy

The government needs to bring in proper financial support for people who need to isolate. And bring in more, smaller, vaccination points (I did see they now have some mobile testing vans - they should have mobile vaccine vans too). If someone's got kids to pick up, a zero hours job to do where it's hard to take time off, and can't drive, then going for a vaccine 15 miles away can take several hours out of the day.

They have at least one vaccine bus❤

It has been doing the rounds in my part of London

They have started with the vaccine busses! They should properly engage with St. John’s vaccinators programme. There are 40,000 trained volunteers across the country, the vast majority of which cannot get a shift for love nor money. I have been ready since February. Instead paid NHS take time out of a huge backlogged system to do vaccines. Crazy.