Lincolnshire coronavirus: Relaxed rules but caution urged

Residents need to remember “we are still in a global pandemic”, said Lincolnshire County Council’s assistant director for public health Andy Fox.

This week, the lockdown was relaxed including allowing people to meet others outdoors in groups of six or two households, as well as take part in outdoor sports.

Mr Fox said it was too early to see the impact of the move, but that it was positive people had a chance to go out in the good weather,

“One of the public health concerns that we have with COVID and there’s so many people are getting unhealthy, just being trapped indoors during a long hard winter, so I’m really pleased with mental health as well that we have the chance to get out and about, to see some other people in a safe way,” he said.

However, he added: “My area of concern is how behaviour changes as a result of that.

“We really want to appeal to people to remember that we’ve only had the rule of six in use outdoors and outdoor sport allowed, it doesn’t mean that we should be mixing indoors – that’s absolutely a bad idea at this point.

“There’s too much COVID circulating right now to really lift the brakes off and see a big increase, because it will spread fast.”

He added there was always a risk of a third wave, as is the case currently in Europe — but said things such as border controls and vaccinations were helping to prevent that in the UK where the numbers were “going the other direction”.

“So, get active do have some fun, but stick to the guidance we have in place, and keep working hard to save lives,” he said.