The Leicester lockdown
The Briefing Room
BBC
4.8 • 731 Ratings
🗓️ 2 July 2020
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In Germany fences have gone up to keep people in their homes and stop the spread of Coronavirus, while some people in Melbourne are being threatened with fines or imprisonment for travelling to other states. Could that happen in the UK?
The new lockdown in Leicester is likely to be the first of many, so how should local lockdowns work and when should they be introduced? David Aaronovitch asks the experts:
Amy Orton – local democracy reporter at the Leicester Mercury/ Leicestershire Online Dr Nathalie MacDermott – Kings College London Damien McGuinness – the BBC’s Berlin correspondent Alex Thomas – Programme director, The Institute for Government Greg Fell - The Association of Directors of Public Health/ Sheffield City Council Director of Public Health Dr Jilly Gibson-Miller – health psychologist at the University of Sheffield
Producers: Kirsteen Knight, Beth Sagar-Fenton, Joe Kent Editor: Jasper Corbett.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:10.1 | Welcome to the briefing room with me, David O'ronovich. |
| 0:13.4 | The briefing room is the mind chamber where in 28 minutes you and I get to understand a big |
| 0:18.4 | issue with the help of the top experts. |
| 0:21.5 | This week, what is the science and practice of the local lockdown? |
| 0:31.0 | The Treasury thinks it's national party time. |
| 0:35.2 | This week, it tweeted out a jolly reminder complete with sound effects that the pubs in |
| 0:40.2 | England are reopening this weekend. Grab a drink, raise a glass it read. And at exactly the same time, |
| 0:48.7 | the city of Leicester was locking down again. The tweet's gone now, but Lester's lockdown is still happening and |
| 0:55.9 | maybe the first of many. So today, I want to know what such lockdowns will look like, who will |
| 1:01.2 | decide when they happen, and how are people likely to react? Step inside the briefing room and together |
| 1:07.0 | we'll find out. |
| 1:16.8 | The story begins in Leicester, and so shall we. |
| 1:19.9 | Amy Orton is a reporter for the Leicester Mercury. |
| 1:25.4 | So the schools are closed for all but key worker children and the vulnerable pupils. |
| 1:28.4 | All non-essential retailers closed, so in the city centre and some of the retail parks on the edge of the city. And from the weekend, people in Leicester |
| 1:34.2 | in the affected areas won't be able to pop for a pint at the pub or have their hair cut either. |
| 1:39.1 | So quite different to the rest of the country by Saturday, I think. People around you, as they talk about this, how are they feeling about it? |
| 1:47.5 | To begin with, people were confused about what the messages were and what they are allowed |
| 1:51.3 | and what they aren't allowed to do. |
| 1:52.6 | I think there's still some confusion around that now. |
| 1:54.6 | So things that maybe people were planning to do at the weekend, meeting it with friends, family, |
... |
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