Eric Leach's Ealing Covid-19 Latest Update | |
Ealing Track & Trace - where is it?
Ealing had 85 new Covid-19 cases in 9 to 15 September 2020 Total Covid-19 deaths in Ealing up to 15 September 2020 is 257. There were no Covid-19 deaths in London on 15 September 2020. Ealing Track & Trace - Where Is It? Anecdotally no-one in Ealing I know can recall being contacted by NHS Track and Trace. It’s not clear how outsourcers Deloitte, Randox, Sitel and Serco actually relate to the skeleton Ealing Council Public Health staff. On the Council’s web site are dates/locations where testing will take place this month: Sunday 20 September: Northolt High School Southern Car Park Wednesday 23 September: Gurnell Leisure Centre Car Park Saturday 26 September: Northolt High School Southern Car Park Tuesday 29 September: Featherstone Terrace Car Park Booking a test is via nhs.uk/coronavirus or by calling 119. However local availability cannot be guaranteed. An Acton resident called up the NHS recently to book a test and was told the nearest available test centre was in Northern Ireland. Positive Covid-19 Test at Ealing Primary School Horsenden Primary School has had a Covid-19 outbreak in Year 1. All 120 year 1 pupils are self-isolating at home until 23 September 2020.
Ealing MP Justifies Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) By Reference to Covid-19 Response Virendra Sharma, MP for Ealing Southall, is responding to his constituents’ complaints about LTNs with references to the Covid-19 response. His pro LTN letter to me dated 14 September 2020 tells me about increased vehicle traffic, reduced use of public transport means increased pollution and ‘even worse’ gridlock on our roads. (When I say ‘his’ letter what I mean is the letter from presumably one of his staff called Corin Spencer). The ‘extra’ increase in traffic on main roads in West Ealing for example is clearly down to LTN 21. What he doesn’t allude to is the fact that many Ealing residents with central London jobs are still working from home (Covid-19 response). Clearly also some children have not returned to school (12% nationally). This obviously changes public and private transport patterns quite considerably. The fact that 2,500 anti LTN protesters marched through Ealing on 12 September 2020 seems to have been missed or ignored by Mr Sharma and Mr Spencer. Of the 10 Ealing LTNs just one is in Southall at Adrienne Avenue (and it’s just the one road block). Southall has consistently the most congested neighbourhood roads in Ealing. Funny thing that. Ealing MP Goes Public with 12 LTN Questions to Ealing Council Transport Supremo On 10 September 2020 Rupa Huq MP for Ealing Central and Acton wrote to Chris Cole, Ealing Council’s Transport Planning Services Manager. In this letter Ms Huq expresses her concerns about Ealing’s LTN programme in the form of 12 searching questions. The words she uses include ‘well-intentioned’, ‘what rationale?’, ‘what success criteria?’ ‘(no) democratic input’, ‘drastic in scale’ and ‘introduced all of a sudden’. We all look forward to studying Mr Cole’s reply. Ealing Hospital Covid-19 Patients Informally senior staff at the hospital say that Covid-19 patients who are currently arriving at the hospital are being successfully treated within days. Patients with very similar symptoms arriving in April 2020 might not have survived. Although Covid-19 infection rates in England are rising, death rates are at a low, static level. Even our expensive and incompetent Covid-19 NHS Test programme is testing far more people than in April 2020. However many experts question the exact accuracy of Covid-19 tests. Finally, if it takes 4 days or more to get a test result (25% of those testing positive*) a genuine Covid-19 infection could have already run riot. (*’Financial Times’ 17 September 2020) Freemasons Donate £25,000 to Feed Over 1,000 Vulnerable People in West London Meals were cooked by West London Masonic Centre staff and delivered by Covid-19 Mutual Aid Ealing, Covid-19 Mutual Aid Southall and Ealing Homeless Refuge. Has Ealing Council Abandoned its Covid-19 Response LTN Programme? LTNs 30 and 20 were scheduled to be installed in West Ealing on 10 September and 11 September 2020 respectively. Here we are at 17 September 2020 and there’s no sign of road blocks on Elers Road, Felix/Alexandria Roads and Endsleigh Road. There is a rumour that the Council has run out of bollards. Anecdotally many bollards have gone missing since 26 August 2020, partly due to inadequate bollard security, but also as a result of civil disobedience by some residents.
Eric Leach eric.alan.leach@gmail.com
September 22, 2020
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