Coronavirus Decision day dawns in Oldham

Today is a big day for thousands of students across Oldham as they finally get their hands on their GCSE results, but for the town this could also be a big day.

The Oldham Evening Chronicle understand a decision will be made today (Thursday 20th August) on whether the town will be placed in a local lockdown following a spike in the number of new Coronavirus infections.

The two main areas which have seen the most new cases have been Alexandra Park and Werenth but recent figures have shown Covid19 has spread to Saddleworth as well.

A virtual meeting was held between the three Oldham MPs, the leader of the Oldham Council and cabinet office officials, among others, on Wednesday (19th August) as the town tried to show that they had a plan in place to tackle the issue without going into local lockdown.

 

Grateful for time of Baroness Harding & Nadine Dorries MP tonight who met with #TeamOldham in the form of me, opposition Leader Cllr Sykes, @shah_arooj, @ChauhanZahid, our 3 MPs and senior officers. We made our case for more time & against local lockdown. Thank you for listening pic.twitter.com/QCi997HEJr

— Sean Fielding (@cllrsfielding) August 19, 2020

However the Oldham Evening Chronicle believe the decision is on a knife edge and could go either way when a meeting is held at Government level to decide what to do next.

While the decision will be made today, it’s not expected to be announced until tomorrow (Friday 21st August) with lockdown restrictions being brought in as early as Saturday (22nd August) if that is the decision taken.

Speaking to the BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, Councillor Sean Fielding said a local lockdown could be “catastrophic” for the town.

“We already have youth unemployment of 9.5% and 15% of unemployment generally so [a local lockdown] would be really, really catastrophic for businesses and for the working-age population in Oldham.”

However in an interview with BBC News, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said they weren’t ruling out imposing a lockdown just like they did in Leicester.

“There is a big challenge in Oldham, the numbers are clear about that.

“We see from what’s happened in Leicester over the past few weeks that where we put a local lockdown in place it then has been effective.”

“We will do what is necessary.”

 

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