By Ian Ridley and David Carter.

Health Secretary Mike Hancock announced on Thursday a further 2 week extension to the lockdown in Oadby and Wigston (and Leicester City).

In answer to queries from some residents, neither the Borough Council, nor we as your local councillors were consulted on this decision by either the Health Secretary or Nick Rushton, the Leader of the Conservative County Council.

The decision is as frustrating for us as it is for local residents and businesses. As a community we have to trust that the decision is made on public health grounds. Make no mistake, Covid-19 is a killer and it looks like even some of those who recover may be left with long-term health issues.

Until a vaccine is widely available, which will hopefully be sometime next year at the latest, the government needs to keep cases of the virus as low as possible, whilst ensuring that we have a viable economy to carry on when it is safe to do so.

Concerns about the decision

So we must continue to get tested when told to do so and follow the lockdown rules if we are to see things eased in our area.

That said, we are concerned about the apparent decision-making process. The Health Secretary said that he decided which areas to bring out of lockdown based on the advice of Nick Rushton. This seems very odd: surely a decision about the lockdown should be based on data and information from local public health officials, not advice from a local politician.

Data

That brings us onto data. Lots of numbers have been used to justify the lockdown. On reflection, this may have been a mistake. Different measures can be used to back any argument and they are often not the “right” numbers to answer the question in hand. It would have been better to have independent health officials say they’ve looked at the data and come to a view. But we’re past that point now.

With expanded testing in the lockdown areas, we need the percentage of positive cases out of the total number of tests being done. This is useful for seeing if the situation is getting better here but needs to be treated carefully when compared to the rest of the country where testing is not so intensive.

So far, Leicester data for this has been published but not for Oadby and Wigston. We think these numbers should be released as businesses and residents need to understand why we are being kept in lockdown. If the data doesn’t back the decision, the Health Secretary needs to look seriously at lifting lockdown here.

Keep Safe, Follow the Guidance

We encourage residents to continue to follow the lockdown rules. This is the best way to ensure we manage this dangerous virus in our area. As your local councillors, we will continue to try to ensure the concerns of residents and businesses are heard by the government and the MP here.