October 2, 2020 - "One in three Britons will be living under tougher Covid-19 rules than the rest of the country tomorrow, despite data showing local lockdowns don't work in most places and that infection rates have actually risen.
"From Saturday, two million residents in Liverpool, Warrington, Hartlepool and Middlesbrough will be banned from meeting people they don't live with indoors in a bid to curtail outbreaks there. It will mean a total of 22.4 million Brits will be living under some form of economically crippling and socially restricting local shutdown. Ministers have justified the measures by claiming they are the only way to stop a second national wave of the disease.
"But data shows Covid-19 infections have doubled in the majority of areas in England that have been subject to long-term restrictions. In 11 out of 16 English cities and towns hit with lockdowns in the last nine weeks, the infection rate has risen at least two-fold and in some cases by more than 10 times.
"In Bolton, Britain's current Covid-19 hotspot, there were 200 infections per 100,000 in the last seven days, up from 14 per 100,000 on July 31. In Wigan cases have risen from seven per 100,000 people to 102 in the same period. Luton is the only area in the country which has successfully managed to drive down cases far enough to break free from the shackles of a local lockdown - but even the Bedfordshire town could be slapped with restrictions once again because cases have started to rebound.
"Scientists, MPs and local leaders say adherence to the rules is low because they have been too 'complex and confusing' to follow. In Middlesbrough, the mayor Andy Preston said he would 'defy the government' and that his town would 'not accept these measures' because there was no evidence they would work....
"Salford has seen its case rate soar by eight times since lockdown was enforced across swathes of Greater Manchester on July 31, spiking from 18.1 to 126.6. In Manchester itself, the case rate has risen more than sixfold since the city was forced into lockdown on July 31 - rising from 22.1 per 100,000 to 147.6. Oldham, another of the Greater Manchester towns to be hit with a local lockdown on July 31, has recorded nearly triple the cases in that time - from 54.3 per 100,000 in July compared to to 144.7 last week.
"In Blackburn with Darwen, which was also forced into a lockdown nine weeks ago, cases have almost doubled since the rules came into force on July 31 - rising from 85.9 per 100,000 to 167.2. Leicester - which became the first area in the UK to have Covid-19 rules tightened - is the only one of the 16 areas to record fewer cases than when it first went into lockdown.... The East Midlands city was recording 140 cases per 100,000 people ... when it locked down on June 30 and it is now seeing 90 per 100,000. But Leicester's case rate still much higher than the 55 per 100,000 average across England.
"It is unclear if case rates would've continued to rise in these areas if no action had been taken. But if the Government's goal was to bring down infections then it had categorically failed, scientists said."
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