Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has blasted the easing of lockdown restrictions in areas of the north of England as “completely illogical”
Measures had been lifted overnight in Bolton, Stockport and Trafford despite the concerns expressed by some within local councils.
Mr Burnham said that it meant boroughs with rising cases of COVID-19 were restriction-free, but others with lower numbers would not be.
This comes after Boris Johnson has been urged to cancel his plans to scrap the overseas aid department, after it had emerged that he sent tens of millions of pounds worth of taxpayers’ money to China while he was the UK’s Foreign Secretary.
He urged the people of Bolton and Trafford to “continue to follow the guidance” not to have social gatherings at home.”
He said:
“We find ourselves in a completely unsustainable position”
Mr Burnham said the restrictions were “always hard to explain to the public but they’re completely illogical now”.
He continued: “Overnight we’ve had restrictions released from two boroughs where we’ve got a rising number of cases – in one case in the red zone – and neighbouring boroughs are still under restrictions but with much lower numbers of cases”.
A spike in COVID-19 cases in Bolton and Trafford has prompted the local council authorities to ask for lockdown restrictions to remain in place the day before they were due to be eased.
Bolton currently has one of the highest rates of new coronavirus cases for every 100,000 residents in England.
The lockdown measures have also been eased throughout Burnley, Hyndburn, parts of Bradford excluding Bradford city and Keighley town, parts of Calderdale excluding Halifax and parts of Kirklees excluding Dewsbury and Batley.
The rise in cases across Trafford and Bolton has shown just how quickly the situation with COVID-19 can change.
On Friday the UK government had announced that it was easing the localised lockdown restrictions throughout parts of Greater Manchester starting on Wednesday.
Mr Burnham said he was asking the government to “talk to us today about an exit strategy from this”.
The Prime Minister has abandoned advice that pupils should not be wearing face coverings in secondary schools in England. Boris Johnson has performed his latest U-turn in the face of growing pressure from teaching unions, headteachers and medical experts.
He said blanket restrictions had become less effective so “targeted interventions at a community level” need to be introduced, particularly “
“door-to-door interventions to do testing, tracing and messaging”.
He also requested financial support to help people self-isolating.”
“We are confident that would be much more effective than poorly targeted blanket restrictions,” he said.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokeswoman said: “We are working closely with leaders and local authorities across Greater Manchester and Lancashire in response to the changing situation and we keep all local restrictions under constant consideration.”
