Join us for Live Coverage of Greater Manchester’s Weekly Covid-19 Press Conference.
The Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham will be joined by Deputy Mayor Sir Richard Leese, Chair of the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership, Cllr Sean Fielding, Leader of Oldham Council, and Cllr David Molyneux, Leader of Wigan Council, to discuss the latest on Greater Manchester’s response to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
Sir Richard Leese begins the conference.The number of people in IV is now just 14 while those in hospital has fallen from 71 to 50.
Last week the region saw 15 Covid-related deaths, compared with 237 at the peak, week ending 30 April.
The virus he says is still pandemic, there is still a risk but at the same time, it is becoming clear that the measures are causing more damage than are saving lives.
We are still nowhere near returning to normal, we are getting to the position where the actions that are being taken are no longer proportional.
More people died from the effects of smoking in Manchester than from Covid-19 adds Sir Richard
Cllr Sean Fielding leader of Oldham Council says there has been a fall in case numbers in the Borough over the last week and he believes that the measures will continue to show a decrease.
In Oldham the pandemic is being spread in households, it has not been brought into those households from people going to the pub or going for meals but from people who were working in businesses that never closed down in the first wave.
He believes that a local lockdown would not be practical and would be disastrous in what is a fragile economy.
Compared to Leicester, Leicester is in a fairly rural area ‘you can draw a ring around’. That isn’t the case for Oldham. It borders Tameside, Manchester, Rochdale. There are parts of the borough where one side of the street is Oldham council and the other side is another council.
Oldham is also intertwined with the economies of neighbouring areas.
Andy Burnham will be writing to the Health Secretary this afternoon to ask to continue with the restrictions in nine of the ten Manchester Boroughs on social gatherings but will ask for the measures in Wigan to be relaxed.
A local lockdown would be ‘highly problematic’ for Greater Manchester due to the interconnected nature of the conurbation he adds.The current ‘highly targeted approach’ is proportionate and is working.There is certainly no case today to impose further restrictions on Oldham
