Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham will host a remote press conference via The Mayor will be joined by Deputy Mayor Sir Richard Leese, Chair of the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership, to discuss the latest on Greater Manchester’s response to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Press Conference begins at 2.30pm
The Mayor begins by reminding us of tomorrow’s memorial service at Manchester Cathedral tomorrow.
Sir Richard Leese begins by running through a few figures but qualifies the figures by saying that GM is still not recieving all the data.he says the story is positive
The seven day rolling average for admissions to hospitals is 2.5, just 15 ICU Covid patients are in the region’s hospitals.
There are now more “business as usual patients in GM hospitals
Greater Manchester 7 day rate of positive tests has gone down from 10.2 to 8.7 in the last seven days
Andy Burnham says that GM Police have continued to disperse a number of events, two gatherings in Bolton and Oldham, the latter brought about three arrests and officers injured
The Mayor says there will be a visible presence across the Transport network to hammer home the message that face coverings should be worn on public transport.The week of action launches tomorrow
We are now going to questions
“Is the Prime Minister correct when he called for a general return to our offices and if so do you agree that it is needed to give a boost to our town centre economies-and connected to that, should the message for using public transport only for essential journeys now be changed?”
Andy agrees that the time is coming for staff to be thinking of coming back but in a safer way as possible
Sir Richard says he has some sympathy to the Prime Minister-It is not an easy question.but as with the Mayor, it has to be done safely.We also need to be adequately financed-
Are GM boroughs which border Blackburn with Darwen, such as Bolton and Bury, at any greater risk of a spike in cases and consequently a local lockdown?
The honest answer says Andy is yes but I wouldn’t go as far as lockdown.We want to support out colleagues in Blackburn with Darwen
Sir Richard says that there is close cooperation with all the surrounding councils
The PM has committed to an independent inquiry into how the gov handled the crisis… what issues in particular would you like to be looked at?
It is important that there is an independent inquiry and this should be done as soon as possible-Issues surrounding social care, unresolved issues around the provision of testing data need to be looked at.
Some of this could be done now that could give us lessons to improve our resilience going into the winter
how do you assess the prospects of places such as rochdale and oldham needing tighter restrictions short of a new lockdown to deal with outbreaks? is any special effort being made with south asian communities in cramped housing? (blackburn’s public health director has highlighted that as an issue there)
It is my primary objective to minimise the prospects of any local lockdown says Andy Burnham.He is confident that the level of support in GM is not matched anywhere else in England.There is, though he says, the case that targeting messages into some communities is needed
Sir Richard points that both Rochdale and Oldham are nowhere near the situation that Leicester was in two weeks ago
