ANDREW Gwynne, Labour MP for Denton and Reddish, voted in parliament this week (Wed, June 17) against the Government’s extension of the Covid-19 laws.
Mr Gwynne, who suffered from coronavirus and Long Covid, believes a new approach is needed.
He said: “We all want Covid behind us and my constituents have largely done the right thing and played by the rules.
“The whole purpose of these lockdowns and restrictions has been to ensure our NHS has never been overwhelmed, as we’ve seen in other parts of Europe and the world. And by that measure they’ve been successful.
“But the vaccine has been a game-changer in protecting people. That has allowed a bit more normality to return, and that’s greatly welcome. So given that success we need a new approach.
“Covid is likely to be with us in one form or another for some time – and possibly, like influenza, forever. We now need to mitigate and manage Covid, ensuring our vaccines are up to date and effective with new variants. And we need to concentrate testing in hotspot areas with effective test, trace, isolate for households infected, with proper financial support for them to do that. It’s a targeted and more effective approach than a blanket switching off and on whole sectors of the economy.
“We are now at a point where thankfully hospitalisations and deaths are low, but there’s another crisis now impacting the NHS, and that’s the backlog of cancelled treatments and operations. It’s time to change approach, restore freedoms sensibly and carefully, complete the vaccination rollout at speed and tackle Covid in a targeted and sophisticated manner.”