Greater Manchester’s Mayor believes that the national lockdown was lifted too early in the North West and that is part of the reason why infection rates are rising.
Andy Burnham, addressing his weekly GM Covid Conference said that he believed there was a high level of underlying virus in the region and the national lockdown was lifted too early based on the virus’ rates falling in London.
In a wide ranging interview he said he believed that it had it become more difficult to deal with the Government, citing the confused situation in Bolton and Trafford last week, yesterday’s Bolton announcement that they were not told about and the chaotic way that the announcement on new social distancing rules was released at 10.30 last night.
“We can’t carry on like this” said the Mayor
There is concern about rising hospital admissions, it is believed that one hospital in the region is driving those increases
Test,trace and isolate needs to be done from a bottom up approach he added saying that he had been in discussons with the Health Secretary and the head of national test and trace over setting up a local proposal which is being sent to the Health Secretary today.
There has to be a better solution than what is happening at the moment,with national test and trace failings combined with local restrictions seemingly the only strategy -“Start funding prevention rather than locking down” he added
Asked whetherr restrictions in Greater Manchester were failing, he did not agree that they were adding that they were effective at first but they have been diminishing over time.He said that it is people in their 30-40s who are driving the increase.
The Mayor also said that it was time for a locally implementing shielding system to be set up
