THE NEWS that a potential vaccine could be in use by Christmas has been welcomed – but the warning remains that people still need to follow social distancing rules.
Council leader John Halsall said: “The vaccination is welcome news, but the current way of life is likely to be in place for another six months.
“The message is the same, if you want to enjoy Christmas and normal life, we have to put the attitudes (of social distancing) into our normal way of life, as that is what it will be for the foreseeable future.
“Even if the vaccine successfully passes the trials, we won’t have enough supplies immediately. It wont cover the whole population.
“So, at the moment, it’s a light at the end of the tunnel.”
Virus cases dropped a little earlier this month, but the numbers are creeping up again. Yesterday, there were 42 new confirmed cases. However, there may have been a lag in reporting as on Tuesday, there were two cases, and 20 on Monday.
In all, there have been 1,635 and Wokingham has 18 cases per 100,000 of the population based on a seven-day rolling average.
This is up from 13 per 100,000 last week, and nine per 100,000 on October 10.
Cllr Halsall is encouraging residents to keep treating the virus as a serious issue.
“You can’t be complacent,” he warned. “We’ve all got to be evangelists for the rules.
“Irrespective of whether there’s a vaccine or not, we can contain the virus and lead our normal lives if we stick to them.
“I keep encouraging people to ensure they have the NHS Test and Trace app on their phone and use it when they check in.
“The whole purpose of it is to tell you if you need to quarantine if you’re a risk to other people.
“We’ve got to get everyone universally using the app and every time they go to a new setting to check in and check out. It’s really really important that everyone has the app on their phone and use it.
“I’m sure that if everybody plays the game, we can look forward to the new year where we’re not going from lockdown after lockdown.”
And Cllr Halsall thanked those who were already doing this.
“People in Wokingham are generally very, very compliant, very sensible, very responsible,” he said. “They shouldn’t need anything other than reminding.”
