Leicester’s Covid-19 infection rate is falling but lockdown won’t be reviewed until July 18

The coronavirus infection rate is falling in Leicester but the local lockdown there must run for another 11 days before officials consider lifting it, officials say.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said in Parliament today that the seven-day rate of infection in the East Midlands city has dropped from 135 to 117 per 100,000 people. 

He said the 13 per cent decline was ‘good news’ but the city must remain in its local lockdown – which began last week – until at least July 18, when it will be re-evaluated.

Leicester is the first city to have gone into local lockdown after a surge of Covid-19 cases there, now thought to be linked to working conditions in clothes factories.

Schools and non-essential shops were ordered to close again last week and people again prevented from meeting up in groups or going to others’ houses. 

Mr Hancock said: ‘We took, last week, difficult but vital decisions about Leicester. 

‘Since then we’ve been working with Leicester and Leicestershire and I’m pleased to say that, together, we have brought down the seven-day infection rate from 135 to 117 cases per 100,0000 people.

‘What we said when we took the measures just over a week ago is that we needed to see 14 days of data, so we propose to make announcements on the next steps on the 18th of July. 

‘Of course, if further measures are needed in the meantime to tighten up then we will take them immediately, but… the good news is that the data are currently moving in the right direction.’

Mr Hancock said he would not put a number on how far the infection rate had to fall before the lockdown would be lifted.

His counterpart, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth, said in Germany officials use a benchmark of 50 cases of Covid-19 per 100,000.

Mr Hancock replied: ‘We’re not going to use or give a specific figure because both the level and the rate of change matters.

‘If the level were lower but it was going up, that could be a worse situation than a higher level that is under control and falling. So you’ve got to look at both the level and the rate of change.’

In his speech in the Commons today Mr Hancock also praised the actions of three pubs in England which closed after customers tested positive after ‘Super Saturday’.

 The Lighthouse in Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset; the Fox and Hounds in Batley, West Yorkshire; and The Village Home in Gosport, Hampshire, were ‘doing the right thing by their customers and by their communities’, he said.

Mr Hancock said: ‘This is NHS Test and Trace working precisely as intended. Three pubs shut so that others can be open.’

He had opened his speech by saying: ‘We are bringing this virus under control’.

In his remarks to fellow MPs the Health Secretary deflected calls for an apology from people lashing out at Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s remarks about care homes yesterday.

Mr Johnson said there had been ‘too many’ homes that didn’t follow procedures properly and appeared to blame them for the thousands of residents who have died during the pandemic.

Care home bosses branded the claim ‘despicable’ and ‘cowardly’, instead pointing blame squarely at the Government, which failed to offer adequate testing and PPE, and discharged hospital patients into homes without testing them.

Mr Hancock defended the PM’s comments and said his admiration for carers was ‘second to none’.

He added: ‘Throughout this crisis care homes have done amazing work and the Prime Minister was explaining that, because asymptomatic transmission was not known about, the correct procedures were therefore not known.

‘We’ve been constantly learning about this virus from the start and improving procedures all the way through, and I pay tribute to the care homes of this country who have done so much to care for the most vulnerable throughout this crisis.’