Implications likely for Lincolnshire from Nottinghamshire coronavirus lockdown

Leaked documents indicate the lockdown will be announced on Monday, as the city has the fourth highest infection rates in England.

The rate of infection for Nottingham currently is 496.8 per 100,000, after cases increased from 314 in the week up to September 27 to 1,654.

Nationally, the rules are also understood to be changing, so that all areas will come under one of three alert levels — with level three for the areas with the toughest restrictions.

Worst case scenarios could see residents ordered not to have social contact with anyone outside their household, while pubs, restaurants and other leisure facilities could be closed in order to combat the spread of coronavirus.

Health bosses in Lincolnshire do not expect the county to need more regulations than those in place nationally on the level one tier.

However, on Wednesday they admitted they are “nervous” about the situation in Nottinghamshire, which borders the county to the west for almost 50 miles.

Many residents in Lincolnshire commute across the border for work or leisure.

The new rules which have been seen by Nottinghamshire City and County leaders show that people can still go on holiday outside of their area – but only with people they live with or have formed a bubble with.

Meeting people from other households would also be banned and visiting indoor hospitality, leisure and retail settings will be restricted to one household.

Many northern areas of England are already covered by tighter restrictions, including Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds.

Government officials have not confirmed the new rules yet, while housing secretary Robert Jenrick said a “range of different options” were still being explored.

Lincolnshire County Council’s assistant director of public health Tony McGinty said he was not happy with Lincolnshire’s own rate of 84 per 100,000 in Lincoln and that the county had “no room to be complacent”.

Regarding the situation in Nottingham, he said: “It does make me nervous because obviously people from Lincolnshire move in and out of Nottingham really frequently.

“We’ve got fast road and rail access between Nottingham and Lincoln now as well, so it is worrying when an area that’s got a lot of crossover with ours has such a significant problem.”

He also backed the 10pm curfew on pubs and restaurants, though added there needs to be more evidence that it works.

However, he said he was “not entirely convinced a two-week short, sharp, circuit breaker lockdown would be a good thing to do”.

“Not everywhere has got the same level of difficulty at this point in time, and clearly there is an economic and educational damage that comes with those sort of ideas,” he added.

Directly across the border from Lincolnshire, Newark and Sherwood District Council have called on residents to “start taking action now” ahead of any imminent lockdown.

The district’s rate of infection yesterday was 111 per 100,000 of population.

David Lloyd, leader of Newark and Sherwood District Council, said: “As a district, we managed to contain our local outbreak in August this year. We all took action and did what was needed to be done.

“I now need to ask everyone to step up again to protect each other.

“We need to protect those who were shielding, those who are vulnerable, our parents, our grandparents and our community.

“No one can be complacent and being so is a threat to people’s lives.”

“We are facing a critical point in controlling the spread of the virus as we head towards winter. So we just have to keep going.”