Leicester lockdown: Why has Covid-19 action taken so long?

The Prime Minister is fond of talking about a whack-a-mole strategy to knock coronavirus on the head. The thing is with the whack-a-mole game, it requires speed and co-ordination to succeed.

Many are wondering in Leicester why it has taken so long to take action when authorities knew there was a surge in Covid-19 cases in early June.

Indeed, the Health Secretary Matt Hancock called it an outbreak about a fortnight ago.

Why the delay? Leicester City Council had been waiting to be given the data from the upsurge in positive Covid-19 tests. They only received it ahead of last weekend.

Local health officials analysed it and found the virus was spreading among the younger, working age population and predominately east of the city centre.

Sir Peter Soulsby, conscious no doubt about the knock-on effect to business in the city by a delayed easing of lockdown, was initially reluctant to extend restrictions. He was sceptical. Why, he wondered, is Leicester being treated differently to other parts of the country?

And surely the increase in cases is inevitable because they've had increased localised testing.

According to Public Health England data, Barnsley, Bradford and Rochdale all had a higher incidence of Covid-19 cases per 100,000 people than Leicester until new figures were announced by the health secretary in the Commons on Monday night.

Mr Hancock said Leicester accounted for "10% of all positive cases in the country over the past week". And the number of positive coronavirus cases in Leicester were "three times higher than the next highest city".

We have had days of confusion, briefings to national newspapers, and delays throughout Monday to a decision which has caused anxiety to business owners, hoping to reopen at the weekend.

It wasn't until after 21:00 BST on Monday that we learned Leicester would have to have an increased lockdown. Non-essential shops like clothing stores are not allowed to open again. That's not much notice.

Those who are vulnerable and shielding won't be allowed new freedoms, and from Thursday schools will close again to all but the children of key workers.

This is the first big local community lockdown in the UK. But it has taken a long time to make that decision and there is still confusion over who enforces it.

It was not until about 09:30 BST on Tuesday we had an accurate map to show us the boundaries of the lockdown.

Conservative MPs with constituencies nudging the Leicester boundaries were having to go on social media to say they were still awaiting the information, late on Monday night.

The hope has to be that testing and tracing people through the data can be speeded up so communities where the virus surges can be targeted quickly.

They also need to speed up the communication with local authorities.

Then it will make it possible to be ready for the next appearance of the virus and whack it as it pops up again. Quickly.

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