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18

Nov 2020

Last Updated: 18/11/2020
Health
Health

Tier one 'did not work', says North Yorkshire public health boss

by Calvin Robinson

| 18 Nov, 2020
Comment

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Dr Lincoln Sargeant's comments today add to the sense that the Harrogate district could be moved from tier one restrictions to tier two when lockdown measures are due to end in a fortnight.

lincolnsargeant-2
Dr Lincoln Sargeant, director of public health at North Yorkshire County Council. Picture: NYCC.

North Yorkshire’s top public health boss has said tier one lockdown restrictions “did not work” and had “no teeth”.

Dr Lincoln Sargeant, director of public health at the county council, said the measures did not give people “a sense of seriousness about the situation”.

The England lockdown is due to end on December 2 and county council leaders said they expect to hear from ministers on what restrictions will be introduced at the end of next week.

North Yorkshire was under tier one restrictions, which meant people followed national guidance with no further restrictions.

But Dr Sargeant told a press briefing of the North Yorkshire Local Resilience Forum, a partnership of emergency agencies, that those in tier two restrictions tackled coronavirus better.

He said:

“There are some things we know for certain. Tier one did not really work, it did not give the public a sense of the seriousness of the situation.
“It just did not have the teeth. We were saying that for some time, we were saying that the issues in North Yorkshire were around household spread and mixing.
"It was not until tier two that you really had measures that would address that particular issue.”


He added that there needed to be “consistency and consensus” from political leaders over what the restrictions will be after lockdown in order for the public to take measures seriously.



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Meanwhile, Dr Sargeant said data appeared to show infections were “plateauing”, but stopped short of saying lockdown measures had worked.

He said:

“We are hopefully beginning to see, particularly in the data around hospitalisations, perhaps the beginning of a plateauing.
“I am very hesitant to say that this is definitely showing a sustained effect of lockdown. We expect to see the effect of lockdown beginning to show this week into next.
“But there is some suggestion that we might be levelling off and we need to keep watching that and hope that it is sustained.”


The briefing also revealed the number of covid patients at Harrogate District Hospital has remained flat. Currently, 27 people are being treated compared with 28 last week.

Harrogate’s testing site on Dragon Road is averaging 180 tests per day, well below its capacity of 320.

Yesterday, Public Health England figures showed a further 48 positive tests in the district, taking the total cases since March up to 3,204.

Following a change by Public Health England into how it records cases, the total number of cases in the district has fallen by 201.

Positive tests are now recorded by where the test is carried out, instead of where the person is registered with the NHS.