ON THE day it was announced that Wokingham Borough would be moved into Tier 3 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the council leader has called for residents to be “vigilant and sensible”.
Cllr John Halsall was addressing a virtual meeting of the council’s Executive committee held online on Thursday, December 17.
He called on residents to follow the rules, limit the number of interactions with others.
The council had identified six wards as hot spots: Winnersh, Shinfield South, Bulmershe & Whitegates, Loddon, Emmbrook and Sonning.
“These are where the incidence of Coronavirus at the moment is the highest and will be concentrating our efforts and messaging there,” he said, adding that the list would change from week to week.
“It is vital, therefore, that we remember and keep to the Covid-19 rules and, in particular at this time of year, remember that the more social interaction we have, the more we risk spreading infection.”
Cllr Halsall paid tribute to the efforts of council staff and volunteers who, as a result, have helped the borough “cope with Covid-19 collectively, compassionately and with much innovation”.
This included the launch of lateral flow tests to allow people to visit around 20 care homes in the borough, planning for similar tests for schools from the new year, and seeing the local contact tracing service reach 90% of cases: “This is in part thanks to our introduction of text message tracing and door-knocking to follow-up on contacts,” he said.
“We are also helping the NHS with its vaccination programme, with care workers in the borough among the first to get the jab. As 2020 has been the year of Covid-19, it must be hoped that 2021 is the year of the vaccine. As I have mentioned, our cases are rising, and the vaccination programme will take time to roll out and so it is no panacea: but it is a cause for optimism and that is an important commodity right now.”
