Calls for more timely Covid-19 data from government

Councillor Shaffaq Mohammed, who sits on the newly created Outbreak Control Board with the ruling Labour group leader Julie Dore, director for public health Greg Fell and representatives from various groups, said they were not being kept up to speed with certain information.

All councils currently get what is called pillar one data - which is testing in hospitals and Public Health England labs - but only last week started receiving pillar two data - which is testing the wider population.

But this is only once a week and there are concerns the figures are not timely enough to be useful and public health officials and leaders have asked for the same information government receives at the time they receive it.

Coun Mohammed said: “Now with these local outbreak boards being set up it’s more important than ever, there’s no point giving us data that is old. Interesting as it might be it won’t really help or assist the local outbreak board in terms of making decisions.

"If we are to make a genuine effort then we need timely data so if there is an issue in a certain area, say it’s had a midnight rave, then we can look at doing local lockdowns based on evidence.

“The more noise we can make at a local level, the better.

“Getting this data will help show whatever we are finding is either not in kilt with what the government is finding or reinforce what we are seeing on the ground. The more information we have the more confident we will be in our actions."

The Outbreak Control Board had its first meeting last week and will draw up a plan with three goals - to stop the virus spreading, to know what is happening in communities and to respond to outbreaks if and when they happen.

They will meet in private every fortnight going forwards and part of the meeting will be public once a month for questions and a report.

Local lockdowns can now be introduced if certain areas see a spike in cases of coronavirus, as seen in Leicester.

Coun Mohammed added: “If we do have a local lockdown, we are not going to put police or army on the streets, it will be about communicating and saying to certain communities ‘we advise that you don’t do this’.

“It will be difficult to police individual communities but our job is to provide that information.”

Sheffield Council was contacted for comment.

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