District councils are unable to deliver a local response to the new variant of COVID-19 due to a lack of ‘accurate, good quality data’, according to Lord Porter of Spalding.

The local authority public health team in Lincolnshire is not being given detailed data on the spread of the new variant in the county, leaving them unable to put a robust case to districts for local action, said Lord Porter, who is leader of South Holland DC.

Lord Porter, the former chair of the Local Government Association, called on Twitter for data to be shared with local Public Health England teams.

He added: ‘We are supposed to be working up a local response to the new variant and Public Health England East Midlands haven’t got a scooby  where the case numbers are.’

He told The MJ that PHE East Midlands has not received details of regional case numbers of the new variant. He said this has left Lincolnshire CC’s public health team in the dark on how many residents have been affected, and where local outbreaks could be concentrated.

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