The Latest: UK accused of slyly imposing local lockdowns
The British government has been accused of introducing local lockdowns by stealth after it introduced tighter restrictions for eight local areas in England that it says are hot spots for the coronavirus variant first identified in India
May 25, 2021, 9:51 AM
6 min read
From left. Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England Professor Jonathan Van Tam, Britain's Health Secretary Matt Hancock and Chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency Dr Jenny Harries take part in a coronavirus media briefing in Downing Street, London, Wednesday May 19, 2021. (Toby Melville/Pool Photo via AP)
LONDON — The British government has been accused of introducing local lockdowns by stealth after it introduced tighter restrictions for eight local areas in England that it says are hot spots for the coronavirus variant first identified in India.
On Tuesday, lawmakers and local public health officials said they hadn't been made aware of changes that the Conservative government published online last Friday.
In that updated guidance, it recommended that people within the eight localities, which includes Hounslow in west London, the city of Leicester and the towns of Blackburn and Bolton, shouldn't meet up indoors or travel outside their areas.
Yasmin Qureshi, a Labour Party lawmaker in Bolton, said she hadn't been informed of the changes, saying it was “typical of this government’s incompetence.”
Cabinet minister Teresa Coffey said the updated guidance shouldn't be a surprise to anyone as it just formalized “on the record” the outlines of what the government had been saying for days.
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MORE ON THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:
— Fourth Czech health minister resigns since start of pandemic
— In NYC’s furthest flung neighborhood, vaccine a tough sell
— Japan says US travel warning for virus won’t hurt Olympians
— Follow more of AP’s pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic and https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine
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HERE'S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:
PRAGUE — The Czech Republic on Tuesday lost its fourth health minister since the coronavirus pandemic struck last year.
Prime Minister Andrej Babis said that the current office-holder Petr Arenberger called him in Brussels, where Babis is attending a summit of European Union leaders to announce his resignation.
Arenberger, the director of Prague’s University Hospital Vinohrady, was only sworn in by President Milos Zeman on April 7.
He has been recently under fire from the media due to alleged irregularities in his tax returns. He declared he owned more assets and had a higher income after he became a government minister than in the preceding years.
It also emerged that he was renting one of his undeclared properties to the university hospital. That deal was signed before he was appointed its director.
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MELBOURNE, Australia — The city that was once Australia’s worst COVID-19 hot spot increased pandemic restrictions Tuesday after identifying a cluster from someone infected in quarantine.
Masks became mandatory indoors in Melbourne, home gatherings were restricted to five visitors and outdoor gatherings were limited to 30, Victoria state’s Acting Premier James Merlino said. The restrictions will apply until June 4.
New Zealand was halting quarantine-free travel to Victoria for three days from Tuesday evening. Health officials said they were taking a cautious approach as there were several unknowns about the Melbourne outbreak.
The cases are linked to a Melbourne traveler who became infected in hotel quarantine in South Australia state earlier this month. Five cases were confirmed Tuesday by Victoria state’s Health Department, bringing the cluster to nine since Monday.
Australia’s second-largest city had an outbreak last year that peaked at 725 new cases in a single August day at a time when community spread had been virtually eliminated elsewhere in Australia. Victoria state, where Melbourne is the capital, accounts for 820 of Australia’s 910 coronavirus deaths.
