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?

In many surge areas it seems to be seeded in the schools before spreading to unvaccinated parents and wider community. We've known this all along but for some reason the government try to downplay it.

@BooblePlate

It’s easier to blame an “entitled minority” isn’t it. Makes you feel like bad things can’t happen to you because you’re not like them.

Well said. The casual racism over what's happening in Bolton is pernicious. We need facts. I'm more concerned that six of the 18 in hospital have had the vaccination and it doesn't seem to have been effective.

@Torvean

Actually local lockdowns do work. If they are carried out properly. I don't get why in some areas we have had local lockdowns. 2-3 weeks problem solved. Yet other areas don't do them properly and ppl just accept that.

Maybe I just live in a place where ppl have seemed to follow the rules since the start

Local lockdowns disproportionately penalise the local economy, local businesses, ability to earn a living, education. Meanwhile the surrounding areas are able to continue to operate. There nothing to stop people from the lockdown area go to a non-locked down area to socialise, taking infection with them. Local lockdowns don't work as well in practice as they do in theory.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-57134652

Majority or hospitisations are people who LG bad vaccine but were eligible

So the old and vulnerable may not be driving it but there the ones putting on the restrictions by using nhs

Even if they locked us down I'm not sure how that would work ,Bolton is s large town that Borders other towns ,people come in and out of Bolton for work etc ,I'm happy to stay home ,I rarely go out anyway ,but you have to remember ,Bolton has never really been out of restrictions and had extra restrictions last year with our first surge ,not sure what the answer is tbh .

@AledsiPad

Why are the government to blame for not closing the border? WHY are PEOPLE not expected to take responsibility for unnecessary travel?! That combined with a higher likelihood of multigenerational households and some scepticism was/is a recipe for disaster.

TAKE responsibility for your actions. If you visited India or the nearest countries maybe, just maybe, it’s your fault. Nobody else’s.

Because people are people. Not everyone is selfless and responsible or ever going to be.

Why do you think behavioural science is a key part of the modeling?

They will release the stats on how many are unvaccinated but eligible. The hospitilisations are still very low Ans they are saying it is predominant people eligible who refused. As there is no evidence the virus has changed totally to impact non vulnerable people more then it would seem likely those getting ill were eligible but declined.

Refused is an interestingly loaded word being used.

As a poster pointed out, vaccination hubs are often in areas with poor public transport links.

The casual racism over what's happening in Bolton is pernicious. We need facts

Apparently the area I live in (south of England) is in the top ten areas for cases of the Indian variant. Very affluent, very "naice", very white, lowish housing density and lots of WFH.

Not the sort of demographic people are associating with it.

@TheAlphaandtheOmega

The vaccination set up does seem to be more conjusive for the middle classes. Book on the internet, maybe travel some miles to your appointment which is not on a direct bus route, free jab but pay a fortune to get to it in some cases and lose time off work. Lots of people on here say, oh just get public transport or a taxi to a jab miles away. Just take a whole day off work and spend a fortune getting there.

Do you actually live in Bolton ? I live in the post code of particular concern,in Bolton ,yes it's s deprived area but it's a walkable distance from the Town centre with a large vaccine hub ,Bolton isn't some backwater with a limited transport system ,we have loads of direct bus routes ,as for booking vaccines ,I can't speak for the whole of Bolton,but as soon as I was eligible group six ,I phoned my Bolton GP and booked an appointment,for myself and DH also group six .

This is so obviously a diversion by the Government as to why they did not put India on the red list and lost a valuable window to sort this.

This article is well worth a read. It sets out the timeline and reason as to why this has happened. And it's all down to Johnson and his failure to lockdown in time.

So now they are diverting away from what is happening and the likes of Little Matty Hancock appearing to blame the public for not getting vaccinated. NO. It's all on you.

news.sky.com/story/covid-19-the-three-days-in-april-that-may-have-fuelled-uk-outbreak-of-indian-coronavirus-variant-12306393

My 90 year old Gran lives in Bolton still. We had to drive her to Manchester City football ground for a vaccine in the early rollout. If she hadn't had us to book online and drive her, she may well have still been waiting because she can't get there under her own steam and GP refused home visits. Refusal is the wrong word.

Lockdowns do and have worked but I don’t think we can keep having them, people just won’t comply, businesses won’t survive and people are just fed up with it.

Vaccinations need to continue to be stepped up because without them numbers are only going to rise.

If there are only 19 people in hospital in Bolton it proves that vaccinations do work and are lowering the hospital admissions, less people are becoming ill enough to need to be hospitalised which is what the vaccine was supposed to do?

We can’t continue with lockdowns but we can slow down the lifting of restrictions and put more in place to make things safe. It’s summer, do people really need to be mixing indoors in each other’s houses, do people really need to travel abroad on holiday? People just need to be sensible but sadly many won’t be.

If they are getting many specific example of where there’s a problem with access to vaccines

But they know this info lurker. they have repeatedly asked for surge testing and surge vaccination. The figures for where vaccine take up is low are readily available. The mayor knows the issue with public transport. It was only through protracted community effort that two vaccine hubs were added : GPs are not vaccinating. Maybe Bedford will get a vaccine bus, like Bolton : but requests so far to extend age range and bring in buses have been met with flat nos : feels like gov is only panicking about Bolton. Call me cynical but I am wondering what would happen if Bedford had a Tory MP and a Tory mayor.

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.

This. It's preferable to encourage the public to point at a particular area and say "it's your own fault for not having had the vaccine"

@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.

Exactly teh same as in the area of Glasgow with high Covid. Lots of temenents, multi-generational living, people working in manual occupations who are less likely to be able to work from home.

Also in Scotland ALL communication about Covid, right from the start, has been in English. There's a bit on the vaccine info letter about scanning a QR code or calling a number to see the information in other languages. But you have to proactively do that. If you don't speak much English and have huge hesitancy over the vaccine anyway, you're not going to bother. They interviewed (using a translator) a Romanian woman the other day who had never had a vaccine in her life, didn't understand what vaccination was and although she did know that there was an injection to stop you getting Covid, said she wouldn't be getting it.

[quote Roussette]This is so obviously a diversion by the Government as to why they did not put India on the red list and lost a valuable window to sort this.

This article is well worth a read. It sets out the timeline and reason as to why this has happened. And it's all down to Johnson and his failure to lockdown in time.

So now they are diverting away from what is happening and the likes of Little Matty Hancock appearing to blame the public for not getting vaccinated. NO. It's all on you.

news.sky.com/story/covid-19-the-three-days-in-april-that-may-have-fuelled-uk-outbreak-of-indian-coronavirus-variant-12306393[/quote]
I live in the postcode too I was eligible for the jab and only Burnley came up for a while, eventually a chemist at middlebrook did for the husband and I went to one in town.
Burnley isn’t the easiest place to get to on the bus if only public transport was available to you.

Is frustrating to see some people not abiding by the rules but I think the majority are realising we need to do something which the queues at ESSA and Quebec street prove.

Restrictions should be in place but unfortunately there is Andy Burnham there who will appose anything that is suggested.

We need facts. I'm more concerned that six of the 18 in hospital have had the vaccination and it doesn't seem to have been effective.

Only 1 appears to be fully vaccinated.
The other 5 only partially.

Even if fully vaccinated, no vaccine ever is 100% effective for 100% of people. You will always get breakthroughs.

We also don't know HOW ill people are? Who of the patients are needing ICU and HDU care. This isn't like this time last year when only the most gravely ill were hospitalised.
In October I was hospitalised when I had covid. At no point did I ever leave the normal ward or need additional treatment such as oxygen, ventilation, etc. So some of the patients currently in hospital might not be as ill as they'd have needed to be this time last year.

[quote Roussette]This is so obviously a diversion by the Government as to why they did not put India on the red list and lost a valuable window to sort this.

This article is well worth a read. It sets out the timeline and reason as to why this has happened. And it's all down to Johnson and his failure to lockdown in time.

So now they are diverting away from what is happening and the likes of Little Matty Hancock appearing to blame the public for not getting vaccinated. NO. It's all on you.

news.sky.com/story/covid-19-the-three-days-in-april-that-may-have-fuelled-uk-outbreak-of-indian-coronavirus-variant-12306393[/quote]
I tagged the wrong person earlier,sorry

All that will happen with local restrictions is people travelling elsewhere to shop/ drink/eat out/ go to cinema. Lots of cases in the young , too, who will still be at school and , again, travelling.

@Gilly12345

Restrictions should be in place but unfortunately there is Andy Burnham there who will appose anything that is suggested.

Local lockdowns won't necessarily work, especially 14 months after the start of the pandemic, especially in areas who have had more lockdowns than most. This has been shown to be the case previously.

"Only 1 appears to be fully vaccinated.
The other 5 only partially"

And it all depends on when people were vaccinated. It really honestly does take a good three/four weeks to devlop antibodies after being vaccinated. I know this because I am part of a study and have blood taken testing for this.

So maybe the partial 5 were not so far on with their vaccination. Just a thought

I feel for you all in Bolton. I'm in Leicester and it was horrible having our communities tarred last year.

It's always so easy to blame "The other"

So is the general consensus regarding the Bolton situation, is that the new variant isn't as rife or as bad as the media are making it out to be?