Covid: Call for unity as North Yorkshire leaders warn lockdown a 'terrible time to lose a loved one when the end is in sight'

Richard Flinton, chairman of North Yorkshire Local Resilience Forum, said people should "embrace" the tough coronavirus measures imposed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson last night to ease pressure on the NHS as it races to protect the most vulnerable at record pace.

Mr Flinton said there is “light at the end of the tunnel” in the vaccination programme and urged residents in the county to stick to the new lockdown restrictions.

“This would be a terrible time to lose a loved one when the end is in sight of this pandemic," he told a briefing today.

"We just need to work together for a little bit longer, embrace the lockdown, follow the procedures, stay at home and there will be a way through this in the end."

Here are the latest Covid figures for every area of the Harrogate district

Mr Flinton said the latest lockdown was going to be "relatively prolonged" and would end in mid-February at the earliest.

He said: "So, the message I think we need to get out to the public and communities, is one of being able to pace ourselves through this lockdown, try and overcome the sense of frustrations that will no doubt exist at this time following on from other restrictions that people have had to cope with.

"But we do have that light at the end of the tunnel of the vaccine, and we need to ask people to embrace this lockdown, to comply with the rules."

He added that if the national lockdown had not been brought in North Yorkshire would likely have been moved into Tier 4 restrictions because of climbing infection rates and mounting pressure on hospitals.

Covid infections in the county have more than tripled over the last three weeks and hospitalisations are approaching the peak during the first spring wave.

Amanda Bloor, accountable officer at NHS North Yorkshire CCG, told the briefing today that there are 271 patients in the county's hospitals with Covid-19 - a rise of 70 from a week ago.

However, Mrs Bloor said there was an "enormous amount of hope" about the accelerating vaccine programme and that the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine would be arriving in the county this week.

She said: "What our focus will be this week is to get a plan together around vaccination in care homes as quickly and as safely as we can.”

By Jacob Webster, Local Democracy Reporter