Coronavirus: Birmingham at risk of lockdown in matter of days as council warns of return to ‘dark days of Spring’

‘Next five to ten days are crucial’, public health official warns citizens

Birmingham could be placed in lockdown in a matter of days, locals have been warned as coronavirus case numbers increase in the region.

Officials have warned the city is “at a knife edge moment” and risks falling into state of tightened regulations as seen in areas of the northwest.

Britain’s second largest city currently has an infection rate of 30 cases per 100,000 people according to the latest figures, compared to 22.4 last week when the city was visited by health secretary Matt Hancock who met with emergency service officials as part of a gold command meeting.

Now Cllr Ian Ward, Leader of Birmingham City Council has said the city will be “forced to go back to the dark days of spring” if more is not done to curb the spread of the virus.

In a statement to citizens, he said a second lockdown ”will set our already-fragile economy back and that could mean more job uncertainty and further struggles to make ends meet for many.

He added: “A local lockdown could also mean some of those freedoms and liberties that we have begun to enjoy again are ripped from our grasp. We don’t want a situation where people cannot see their loved ones in care homes – as many already cannot do – or not go to their favourite restaurant.

“Nobody wants to have to wait in a lengthy queue at their local supermarket or not be able to use all of the facilities in their local park.

“Going into the next stage of restrictions will also probably mean an end to households meeting indoors, severely restricting our ability to socialise as we would like to.”

Local lockdowns have already been implemented across swathes of the northwest and Leicester – which has been subject to restrictions since July when the rest of the country saw many measures lifted.

Meanwhile Oldham is among the regions being watched closely by experts as soaring infection rates put the town on a path towards a more stringent lockdown than that imposed on the rest of Greater Manchester.

Birmingham’s public health director Dr Justin Varney told the Birmingham Mail that “the next five to ten days are crucial” for the city.

However he added he believed the state of the region’s lockdown would be less like that of Leicester and Manchester, but instead be highlighted as a region requiring financial and logistic support to roll out testing facilities and other resources.

“I expect we will be on that national list and will go on as an area of ‘enhanced support’ – that is not the level that Leicester and Greater Manchester are in (subject to legally enforced restrictive lockdown), but the level below that – think Northamptonshire, Blackburn, areas like that, certainly over the next week.”, he told the publication.