Leicester has a history of lockdowns

Leicester lockdowns

Leicester was forced to impose the first local lockdown, in response to a reported surge in cases of coronavirus.

— The city was last locked down from the rest of the country on 30 May 1645, when a 10,000-strong royalist force led by Prince Rupert and Charles I himself besieged the town and demanded it to surrender. The parliamentarians, who consisted of 480 garrisoned soldiers, 900 townsmen and 150 volunteers from the rest of Leicestershire, were heavily outnumbered. Moreover, the city’s medieval walls had mostly gone, and had to be hurriedly replaced by earth banks. Even so, the parliamentarians inflicted large losses on the royalists as they breached its defences — to be repaid with a brutal repression when the royalists eventually overpowered the city.

— Although he won on that day, Charles confessed on the eve of his execution that his treatment of Leicester had been a turning point against him.

Finding friends

How is contact-tracing going? Between 11 and 17 June:

6,129 people tested positive.

6,923 people were referred to the contact-tracing team (included some who had tested positive in the previous week).4,869 of these were reached by the contact-tracers.

3,633 provided details of at least one close contact.

1,236 said they had had no recent contacts (how they caught the virus in this case isn’t clear).

30,286 close contacts were identified.

24,734 were reached and agreed to isolate (although there is no figure for how many actually did so).

Source: Department for Health and Social Care

Bar chart

Pubs in England were allowed to reopen. How many were there before lockdown?

— In 2018 there were 47,600 pubs in the UK, down 13% since 2011 and 22% since 2000.

— However, employment in pubs has increased since 2001, from 445,000 to 450,000, suggesting that those which are left are larger establishments.