"We all have to be in it together."
Families who refused to quarantine after trips to India have been blamed for the rise in Covid-19 variant cases in Bolton.
Locals believe people returning from India may have brought the variant to Bolton before it became a hotspot.
It is claimed that some of those returning to the UK did not carry out the 10 days of self-isolation.
Mohammed Khan, owner of a travel agency, told the Daily Mail:
“It’s very selfish. People just think about themselves and their own pleasure.
“Just because you can’t go to a restaurant or a cinema for a few months, you want to go to a completely different country.
“I don’t want a third lockdown. It’s a team effort. We all have to be in it together.”
Since becoming a hotspot for the new Covid-19 variant, surge testing has been deployed in Bolton.
The infection rate is 384.6 per 100,000 residents, a huge increase compared to England’s average of 20.6.
More than 90% of new cases are now believed to be the new strain, which is believed to spread faster than the Kent variant.
In the week up to May 16, 2021, there have been 982 positive Covid-19 tests.
The new variant was found in Deane, Rumworth and Great Lever.
John Openshaw, a Deane resident, said:
“Around here there could be between two and eight in a two-bedroom house.
“If you are talking about those numbers and Covid kicks off in a house, it is going to spread and spread.”
Just over 40% of people living there are of Indian and Pakistani origin.
However, experts believe the surge is due to poverty, dense housing and multi-generational homes in the areas, rather than ethnicity.
One shopkeeper said people had been following the rules in the first lockdown, but “plenty” have broken restrictions recently.
He said: “People have been coming out when they should have been isolating.”
Dr Helen Wall is leading the vaccine rollout in Bolton.
She said: “Efforts are continuing at large in Bolton.
“We have had a great week in terms of the numbers of extra people that we have managed to vaccinate, but we have got a long way to go.
“We are really just focusing now on expanding our vaccination programme to other areas and also encouraging the second dose people to come forward.
“We are also trying to provide that extra capacity for that to happen.”
The NHS is now trying to vaccinate as many people as quickly as possible.
But new data revealed that the Pfizer vaccine is 88% effective against the new strain, but only after two doses.
Loading ...