Sandwell's public health boss warns of the dangers of letting guard down during coronavirus pandemic
Health experts have warned coronavirus could still "stab us in the back" – despite falling rates across the Black Country and climbing vaccination numbers.
Dr Lisa McNally, director of public health for Sandwell Council, said despite the rapid decline in cases now isn’t the time to think it’s over.
In a stark, simple message, she says: “If you are in a fight you can’t afford to think you have won and turn your back because it [Covid] will stab you in the back.”
It comes as infection rates in every metropolitan area in the West Midlands fell below the 100 per 100,000 mark this week and as schools reopen in what seems a slow motion, lockdown prison break which the Government hopes will be completed by June.
Overall, the average number of new cases in the region has fallen by 40 per cent in the seven days up March 8.
Stoke-on-Trent has recorded 96 out of 100,000 people testing positive, in Sandwell the figure is 91, for Birmingham 88, Walsall 86, Dudley 72 and Wolverhampton 63.
It is a reversal from early January when Sandwell saw infections topping the 1,000 mark and neighbouring towns suffered similar frightening rates.
But it’s not all good news, in Tipton Green the rate is twice the average for the rest of of the borough,
Urging people not to drop their guard, Dr McNally makes a simple comparison to the end of the first lockdown last year.
She said: “In July, the number of new cases were over 500 a day. Now it’s nearly 5,000.
“This is far from over.”
The vaccination programme in the borough has seen 90 per cent of over 70s get their jab in but that she says it doesn’t amount to a ‘get out of jail free’ card.
Dr McNally said: “The vaccine is essential to taking us out of lockdown and more importantly not returning to it as we have done before.
“Without it you have no defence, with it you can build antibodies which can prevent you becoming seriously ill or even dying and it also protects your loved ones and your community.
“When anti-vaxers and Covid deniers say vaccines are about controlling us, ironically it’s the opposite. Both for both me as an individual and as a society, vaccines give us control.
"It gives my body the antibodies and it gives us more control as a society because the more quickly people get vaccinated and the higher the percentage, the less likely we will go into lockdown again.”
However she cautions while the first injection gives greater protection it’s when between 65 to 70 percent of the adult population have had their second jab we can start to be confident we won’t have to return to lockdown,
So her advice is simple – if you haven’t had the vaccine get it, if you’ve had the jab act like you haven’t.
It’s the community’s response she believes which has brought down infection rates.
She added: “If you look at Sandwell and similar areas in the West Midlands, lockdown in many ways never really happened.
“A high per cent of our population are in industries where it’s impossible to work from home so they continued to go to factories, processing plants and distribution centres.
“This lockdown was clear, if you cannot work from home then you went to work.
“Sandwell is an area which has had to do it for itself. I’m not saying the lockdown hasn’t had an impact but what is interesting is – and not wanting to say ‘power to the people’ too much – but if people in Sandwell and areas like it didn’t go to work then people in more affluent areas won’t have had their food processed, won’t have had their packages delivered or have they the things they rely on every day.”
