'We are going very rapidly in the wrong direction' - Derbyshire MP issues stark warning about Covid-19

The infection rates in both Chesterfield and North East Derbyshire have risen significantly this past week, even after the areas were both placed on a higher restriction tier.

Lee Rowley, MP for North East Derbyshire, has now released a statement on the current situation with coronavirus, questioning whether Tier 2 restrictions will ‘will have any effect’ on the crisis regionally or nationally.

Posting on Facebook, he wrote: “The numbers are pretty stark this week: we are going very rapidly in the wrong direction both in North East Derbyshire and Chesterfield.

"As an area, we are now higher than places like Leicester and significantly higher than the English average.

“For the last few weeks, I’ve also been highlighting another estimate of coronavirus cases (in England, rather than locally) by the Office of National Statistics. The statistics here have gone up again, too, from 335,000 to over 430,000.

“And, I’m afraid hospitalisations and, sadly, deaths are also rising. The national figures speak for themselves: the number of people with coronavirus in hospital has gone up from less than 1,000 at the end of August to nearly 10,000 as of today. At points in August, less than 10 people a day were dying of the virus across the UK. Yesterday, over 300 people died in a single day.

“I put up these statistics not to alarm people and I realise that there are different views of the best strategy on the virus. Yet, every single indicator is flashing that there is a problem – both locally and nationally.

“The next question is whether our move into tier 2 last weekend will have any effect on these numbers locally. If there is any impact then that would likely take a couple of weeks to come through so we will see if it has had any impact on the figures in the coming days.

"I know everyone is exhausted and tired with coronavirus but please keep going and doing whatever you can – you can influence the numbers in a few weeks’ time for the better.”

The MP had previously stated that ‘there needs to be a sustained decline in the number of positive tests in our area over a good period of time’ for an area to move to a lower tier.

However, both Chesterfield and North East Derbyshire have seen the number of positive cases hike significantly in the last week – indicating that the areas will remain in Tier 2 for the foreseeable.

In the week up to October 25, the infection rate in Chesterfield was just over 338, having more than doubled from the week before.

It is a similar case in North East Derbyshire as the infection rate has increased significantly in the week up to October 25, reaching 373, considerably more than 226 the week before.

The weekly infection rate is the number of new cases per 100,000 people.