Steven Broomhead, council chief executive, says we will have to get used to a new norm with coronavirus

Last week we passed the grim benchmark of 20,000 Hospital COVID-19 related deaths.

In the Second World War there were 60,000 civilian deaths which shows the seriousness of the impact of Covid-19. Here we have sadly lost 120 Warringtonians to Covid in hospital or in care homes. The support for our care homes is a priority collaboration focus for all our key health and care partners.

There is much talk about the way in which the lockdown can be gradually released. There will be a continuation of balance of health care and wellbeing, social distancing and the impacts on the national and local economy. Regrettably, it is a fact that our local economy has been significantly damaged by the pandemic and this is across all our employment sectors. It will take time to recover. Warrington has a resilient and enterprising spirit which will assist.

Government will need to continue its support for local businesses for months ahead. We will need to model our behaviours for a new “normal” as in the short term life will not be the same as it was. We will need to accept that managed social distancing will continue for some months to come.

Warringtononians have responded very well to the disruptive but needed restrictions.

A stronger community spirit has developed which I hope will carry on post pandemic.

However, the continuation of the current lockdown restrictions may not be tenable for our livelihoods and physical/mental health.

If the current lockdown is not lifted in a planned/phased way it may have longer term deeper economic impacts.

The worst case scenario is that lockdown that has been held to by consent begins to break in an uncoordinated and messy manner.

Warrington has shown that we can be trusted to respect the restrictions. We now need to trust the government to come up with a clear plan to ease the lockdown whilst remembering that the health and risk of Covid will continue for some time to come.

Let’s all continue to beat the bug. Take care.