A Southport councillor is urging local residents, particularly the young, to take their own steps to restrict their own movements before the new month-long official national lockdown period starts again on Thursday.
Councillor Tony Dawson, who represents Southport’s town centre and West Birkdale, is concerned to save lives and also to enable the local hospitality sector to have a chance of emerging from the lockdown with fewer restrictions in December. He says:
“All the scientific commentators are expressing serious caution and doubt as to whether the national lockdown will be able to come-off on the day in December which Boris Johnson has announced. It may well be released differentially for different postcode areas in the run up to Christmas. If we want Southport to be one of the least restricted places when that happens, every single day counts.
“Today, if you continue your recent behaviour patterns, you or people like you throughout England are susceptible to be spreading the virus. Sadly, about one in a hundred of those catching COVID are dying with many more being very ill. The only reason a delay till Thursday has been chosen for the new legal lockdown starting is because of legal and operational issues related to the proposed changes.”
“The government has fallen foul of its own policy-making by wishful thinking rather than following overwhelming scientific advice. But it is not the government who are suffering as a result of these monstrous mistakes – but the people of England. By being two weeks behind the Welsh – and behind Scotland, too – we in England now have a hurdle to overcome ten times greater than the residents of these other countries.
“It now looks like there will be 50,000 UK COVID deaths officially recorded before the New Year comes in. That means we will likely have had an entire year with an average of TWO Grenfell Tower disaster’s worth of excess deaths, most of them completely unnecessary, every day, three hundred and sixty five days of the year 2020.
“The key thing to getting Britain out of these restrictive measures is people’s own choices about their own behaviour. For, it is people’s own actions which will determine whether the rate of COVID spread is reduced, not the activities of the regulating and policing authorities.
“Young people, particularly, hold the key. You, yourself, may not be badly affected by the virus but it may be YOUR behaviour which will determine whether your best friend’s granny dies a lonely painful death. Please do NOT go out for a bad behaviour last night binge where people will mingle closely. Please start you own ‘lockdown’ NOW – and help Southport to become one of the safest places to emerge from the restrictions before Christmas, boosting the local economy as well as saving lives.”
Together with his colleague Councillor John Pugh, Councillor Dawson, who is himself a pensioner with an underlying health condition, helped the Council supported dozens of vulnerable local people – as well as neighbours and family members during the previous lockdown. He also has a family member working on the wards of local hospitals.