Daily coronavirus briefing

City council leader Matthew Brown says government efforts on 'surge vaccinations' are "too little too late" for areas worst affected by Covid - and says he asked for virus hotspots months to be prioritised for jabs months ago. View email online

Subscribe May 19, 2021 Good evening, There will be few people who disagree with Preston City Council leader Matthew Brown when he says local lockdowns must be avoided. It is literally the last thing our local businesses - and residents - need. The people of Lancashire have been living under restrictions now for the best part of 15 months, with a few weeks off last summer for good behaviour. And while most of us accept that a national lockdown was needed to ensure the NHS and its staff were able to cope with a rising number of Covid cases, we have to avoid further closures if we can. It is easy to talk with hindsight and say that we all should have been better prepared to cope with a pandemic, after all the warning signs had been there with Sars and even Bird Flu. But that’s for an inquiry to decide. However, we do need to be much more agile in our approach and try to get one step ahead of the virus so that we can get to a stage where it is something we live with. When so many health experts and politicians have been calling for faster action it is difficult to disagree. Until next time, take care Gillian Contact me with your views as [email protected] Thanks for reading. If you value what we do and are able to support us, a digital subscription is just £1 per month for the first two months. Try us today by clicking here 'We need to consider how the Indian variant will affect our community': Preston council leader calls for local authorities to manage jab rollout City council leader Matthew Brown says government efforts on 'surge vaccinations' are "too little too late" for areas worst affected by Covid - and says he asked for virus hotspots months to be prioritised for jabs months ago. This is why the majority of Lancashire saw the number of Covid cases fall in the last 24 hours Public Health England removed 4,776 positive Covid test results from its record books due to changes in how data is recorded - here are the latest figures across the county. 'This is another important step towards normality': Elderly care home residents can now be reunited with up to FIVE loved ones Residents who have struggled without their families through the pandemic living in care homes can now be visited by up to five people as of yesterday, May 17. Government did not have ‘detailed contingency plans’ in place for pandemic, says National Audit Office The government was not as prepared as it could have been for the Covid pandemic, the National Audit Office (NAO) found. Confusion over holidays as some ministers give go-ahead - but others say travel is ‘dangerous’ Confusion remains in place regarding whether or not people should book to go abroad this summer, as ministers give drastically different advice. Here are the age groups with the highest number of Covid cases in Preston right now Mounting concern about the spread of the Indian coronavirus variant has led to speculation that the UK’s journey out of lockdown could be derailed. View more news

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