Message from Councillor Ian Courts, Leader of Solihull Council

Once again our scientific community has managed to do in ten months what some said would take years, by announcing another viable COVID vaccine. Modern pharmaceutical technology is incredible and delivering the news we all want to hear; let’s hope there is good progress in the plans for the enormous task of rolling out the vaccine in the coming months.

In the meantime, social distancing must go on, wearing a face covering, keeping to the one way systems in supermarkets and so on. To hammer home the message about how the virus is spread, I have asked for two posters to be produced to remind us all that, in the end, it is people who are transmitting it, and that enclosed spaces are the biggest risk factor.

I have been told that there has been some confusion about the self-isolating rules amongst those who have unfortunately caught the virus, have the symptoms or have been contacted by test and trace, in terms of how the rules affect the rest of the household. To work out how long isolation should last we have produced a handy visual guide to make it clear what you need to do.