There is increasing confusion in lockdown measures being implemented in Greater Manchester as an increase in coronavirus cases in local leaders urging the government to change course. Less than 24 hours before restrictions on social visits were due to be lifted on Wednesday, two local authorities covering more than 520,000 people warned the government it was too early to ease the measures.
Council leaders in Bolton and Trafford have now written to Health Secretary Matt Hancock as Asian Voice went to print asking him to change course. The infection rate in both boroughs is several times the average for England. Hancock had earlier announced that more than 1 million people would be allowed to visit their friends and family again from Wednesday in Manchester.
Andrew Western, the Labour leader of Trafford council, wrote to Hancock complaining that his authority’s health officials had been overruled to appease Tory MPs. In his letter, he told the health secretary that Trafford’s infection rate had increased 100% over the past week. He wrote, “In short, this decision has caused chaos and confusion that not only impacts potentially on the health of my residents but of the likelihood of compliance in neighbouring boroughs that now have a lower rate of infection than Trafford. The proposed arrangements now make little sense.”
Justin Madders, Labour’s shadow health minister, has also asked the Health Secretary of the same. He said, in his statement to The Guardian, “If lockdown decisions are thought to be being made on a party political basis then all trust in those decisions will go. Matt Hancock needs to publish all the scientific evidence he is basing these decisions on as a matter of urgency.”
The decision announced by Hancock means that several areas – including Manchester, Salford, Rochdale, Bury and Tameside – are all recording lower rates of infection than Bolton yet restrictions remain in place in those areas beyond Wednesday.
