North Yorkshire's Covid plans 'to stay for two years'

Track and trace along with further controls will remain in place until the summer of 2022 in North Yorkshire

A county's plan to deal with new coronavirus outbreaks or a second wave will have to remain in place for two years, public health officials say.

Dr Lincoln Sargeant, the director of public health in North Yorkshire, said there was no knowing when a vaccine or effective treatment would arrive.

He said a test and trace scheme needed to be "business as usual" and expected it to operate until the winter of 2021.

But the county council was told overall control plans would stretch into 2022.

Councillor Caroline Dickinson, the county council's executive member for public health, said the region's plans would stretch into the summer of 2022.

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The plans outline how entire towns, streets, schools and businesses could be put back under lockdown, the Local Democracy Reporting Service says.

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Speaking at a meeting of North Yorkshire County Council's executive, Ms Dickinson said: "Although the issue is topical and there is great interest in the experience of Leicester where the first local lockdown was implemented, outbreak management will become business as usual.

"It is important that our plan is sustainable over the next 24 months when we may need to respond to outbreaks of various sizes and complexity in different settings across the county."

The claims come as North Yorkshire recorded one to two new coronavirus cases every day, according to Dr Sargeant

The county currently has a total of 2,533 confirmed cases with an infection rate of 412 per 100,000 people - almost a third of the rate in locked-down Leicester.

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