Newham Council is issuing regular e-bulletins to residents about what’s happening at the Council and in the borough, including the latest information about how we are responding to Covid-19.
You can read the latest message from Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz below:
Since I last wrote to you in this email bulletin, details have emerged about how the Government plans to move to the next stages of loosening lockdown restrictions, including a return for schools, shops reopening, and a test and trace programme to prevent further outbreaks of Covid-19 which went live from 9am today.
If you believe you have symptoms of Covid-19 the national NHS test and trace programme will allow you to order a test. If that test is positive you will be contacted within 24 hours and then be helped to identify people you have had close recent contact with, because those people may be at risk of having caught the virus. If you are then told to self-isolate, then you must, regardless of whether you have symptoms or not.
The success of the service, and our ability to return to a more normal life, relies on a national effort with everyone playing their part and doing the right thing. But the national scheme will be supported by plans across each local authority to tackle local waves of Covid-19.
I’ve long been arguing for a more localised approach in dealing with the spread of the virus with councils and their public health teams at the helm. That’s why I’m delighted that along with Hackney, Camden and Barnet, we’ll be working on the best way to identify future Covid-19 outbreaks and take action to stop the virus spreading and save lives.
Our Public Health team have been developing our own local contact tracing action plan. They’ve been putting in the hours to review our local outbreak control readiness plans and systems and undertaken lots of scenario planning to make sure those plans are robust. They have also developed a protocol for tracing contact histories, and made sure that an effective and easy to access data hub has been established so that we can communicate local information direct to you.
With plans to develop and share best practice with councils across London, I’m clear that Newham’s role in this programme will be to ensure that it works for the benefit of those communities especially vulnerable to the risks of Covid-19, because of deprivation and health inequalities. We also know that this virus has a disproportionate impact on ethnic minorities, so our input will focus on the specific vulnerabilities in our community and ensure no-one gets left behind. Last night at the meeting of our Health and Wellbeing Board which you can on Newham Facebook Live, we agreed to set up a working group to look at this issue in depth.
On Sunday or Monday, we expect Public Health England to publish a report on its inquiry into the disproportionate mortality rates affecting ethnic minority communities. We will share these findings with you, and any recommendations that arise, and already we have been focusing on the disproportionate impact on Newham’s ethnic minority communities. At last night’s Health and Wellbeing Board, we agreed to establish a working group to take forward this work with the urgency it deserves. More details will be published soon and it’s terms of reference, plus the work programme will be discussed at the meeting of the Board next month.
In Newham we are best placed to react to any local outbreaks, rather than waiting for national pandemic analysis and a cumbersome top-down response. Saving lives should not be based on national systems and processes which slows down rapid responses and adds fatal time.
Test and tracing is also an important consideration on whether our primary schools will reopen to additional pupils from Monday. I have made it absolutely clear that it shouldn’t happen. And it shouldn’t happen because firstly, schools and parents are worried, and secondly, because it is absolutely imperative that we should be preventing the spread of this evil virus, avoid a second wave, and save lives. You can read the Council’s position on this later on in this bulletin.
This Council’s guiding commitment is that no school will be forced or coerced to re-open until governing bodies have conducted their own risk assessments and made their own decisions as to whether their school is safe for children, families and staff to return to class.
I have tasked our Health and Wellbeing group to create an advisory group of experts and clinicians who will offer additional advice and guidance, and step in if they don’t believe a school’s risk assessment is adequate, but ultimately legally it is the school’s governors who decide.
I also want to reassure parents and carers that as the Local Education Authority, we will not take action against anyone who decides not to send their child or children to school if they are open.
The Prime Minister has also announced other measures to loosen lockdown, including allowing car showrooms and indoor markets to reopen from next week, and from June 15 other “non-essential” shops can begin to re-open, if they can ensure “social distancing” can be achieved.
Shops selling items including clothes, shoes, toys, furniture, books, and electronics will be allowed to reopen - if Government safety tests are met. This will inevitably put more pressure on space in our high streets, and potentially on public transport. That’s why we are urging all of you to stick to sustainable transport, like cycling or walking when traveling around the borough.
We are working with the Mayor of London’s Streetspace scheme to introduce measures like wider footpaths, decluttering, on-street stencilling and signage to encourage social distancing and extra cycle lanes – that work has already begun and will continue through the summer.
Please continue to do all you can to help control the spread of the virus by staying home as much as possible, work from home if you can, limit your contact with other people, keep your distance from others if you do go out, and wash your hands regularly.
Best wishes.
Rokhsana Fiaz OBE
Mayor of Newham
Read more Covid-19 updates from Mayor Fiaz or follow her on Twitter @rokhsanafiaz