Council warning as Covid cases continue to rise
North Lincolnshire Council have issued a warning, reminding residents of the importance of the rule of 6 as local cases continue to rise in Scunthorpe and the surrounding areas.
Public health officials have urged people to stick to social distancing rules, and to do their bit to curb the spread of Covid-19.
According to the most recent data, the rate of new coronavirus infections has risen across all but one area of Lincolnshire.
As of September 21, positive cases in North Lincolnshire have increased to 41.2 per 100,000 of the population, up from 31.9 previous week.
Only West Lindsey saw a decline in cases.
Jilla Burgess-Allen, a senior consultant in public health at North Lincolnshire Council, said:
“Our rate is continuing to rise sharply, as it is across the country. We expect this to continue.
“Thankfully we do not have any big outbreaks in North Lincolnshire at this time. From the data we have available we can see the rise is across the whole community – the responsibility for containing it lies with each one of us across the area.
“We are seeing quite a bit of transmission happening in homes and with the cooler weather we’ll all be spending more time indoors so we are asking people to think carefully about keeping their home Covid-secure.
“The Rule of 6 is critically important now and particularly people need to make sure they do not have any visitors if anyone in the house is self-isolating.”
The council have advised that, unless covered by an exemption, people adhere to a series of measures.
These include only meeting in groups of 6 or less, whether indoors or outdoors, maintaining social-distancing rules when you meet up with other people, and limiting how many different people you see socially over a short period of time.
“The measures which have been put in place have been designed to control the virus and protect the public as well as keeping the economy and society open,” continued Ms Burgess-Allen.
“We all need to work together to control the virus and enable the return of more normality to our lives. Now is not the time for complacency; we have seen big increases in the spread of the virus in other parts of the UK.
“As the new measures have been implemented we’ve seen many great examples of how people have adapted to them to ensure they can keep themselves and others safe and well.
“That is the key part of the strategy, adapting. We’re not asking people to stop, to put their lives on hold, but to make a small number of minor changes to the way they go about their day to day business and the vast majority of people here in North Lincolnshire have done that.
“We must remember if we raise our own risk we do so to for other people. For some of those people the effects of Covid-19 can be fatal.”
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