Newcastle council leader pleads for lockdown caution
Last updated 23rd Feb 2021
Newcastle’s council leader has warned people not to get too excited by the lockdown exit roadmap revealed on Monday.
After provisional ‘earliest’ dates were confirmed for when various Covid restrictions could be lifted on social contact and the opening of businesses, Nick Forbes pleaded for caution and said that we should be prepared for more potential delays.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced in the House of Commons that all pupils will go back to school on March 8, shops and hairdressers could reopen on April 12, and people could be allowed to socialise indoors with friends and family from May 17.
If all goes to plan, it is hoped that all legal limits on social contact could be removed no earlier than June 21.
At a Newcastle City Council cabinet meeting on Monday evening, Coun Forbes warned that “data and not dates” must be the key factor in deciding how and when to release lockdown rules.
The city Labour leader said: “I want to welcome the cautious, data-driven approach that the Prime Minister has announced today, but we cannot afford to keep yo-yoing between lockdowns.
“We all have to understand that beating Covid is a marathon, not a sprint.
“It is important that we understand that although a lot of dates have been announced, it is data and not dates that should determine our decision making.
“We all need to understand that there may well be delays to the further lifting of restrictions if we see greater than expected spikes in Covid numbers as various restrictions are relaxed.
“That means residents should remain careful and abide by the restrictions already in place. Otherwise, we risk case numbers rising again.”
Coun Forbes, who had warned last week of the dangers of more new variants of Covid emerging and derailing our exit from lockdown, added that he hopes that a memorial will be created to remember the hundreds of city residents who have died because of the virus.
He said: “Infection rates do continue to fall across the city, but they still remain high and we still have many people in hospital and we still have many of those people dying as a result of Covid-19. We have seen 500 deaths in Newcastle from Covid already and while our death rate is among the lowest in the country, that is cold comfort for all those who have lost loved ones.
“Every death from Covid is a tragedy and I know that, at an appropriate time in the future, the city will find a way of permanently remembering those who have lost their lives to Covid from our communities.”
Nick Cott, the council’s Lib Dem opposition leader, agreed that a “safety first” approach was needed to lifting lockdown.
He said: “There is always a temptation to take measures to limit lockdown too early and we have seen this in the past.
“I hope that the government has learned from that and is now proposing to take it much more slowly, we do hear that that will now be the case.
“We have to be vigilant and we have to watch out for that.”