Public health officials are keeping the British people in the dark about the location of new coronavirus outbreaks to prevent “community tensions” and “hate crimes”.
Members of the public “are not being given a full, accurate, picture of where coronavirus cases are — to protect people who test positive from possible hate attacks,” according to Jane Haynes, Politics & People Editor at BirminghamLive, following an interview with Dr Helen Carter, deputy director for Public Health England (PHE) in England’s West Midlands.
“We have had some incredibly upset people who have spoken of neighbours not speaking to them, of communities not being supportive,” Dr Carter told the reporter.
“Having supported some incredibly distressed members of the public there is an element of wanting to protect them from quite nasty hate crimes,” she added.
Quite how Dr Carter’s remarks should be interpreted is unclear. The technocrat’s quotes at times appear to suggest simply that people known to be coronavirus-positive have in some cases been mistreated — but her references to “hate crimes” and also “community tensions” perhaps suggest outbreaks may have been concentrated in particular groups at times.
Country-wide, it was reported in late June that around half of the coronavirus infections imported into Britain from overseas since March came from Pakistan, for example — although the BirminghamLive report gave no definite confirmation that Dr Carter was seeking to cover up outbreaks among any one ethnic group.
In Leicester, which was recently put back into lockdown, one local politician suggested problems with a “language barrier” were to blame for the high number of cases — which are most pronounced in the east of the city, where roughly two-thirds of residents are from ethnic minorities.
“There is still virus circulating in communities and it does worry me a lot when I see photos of groups gathering — like the recent situation of people in the Bullring gathering, not adhering to social distancing,” Dr Carter said, choosing to highlight an incident in which fans of a particular YouTuber grouped together rather than the weeks of massed, often violent Black Lives Matter demonstrations which have gripped the country for weeks now.
“[Sometimes] we speak to people who have a confirmed case and we interview them and learn they have been travelling long distances, car-sharing with other people without wearing a mask, or other situations,” she admitted.
“It is a difficult situation to navigate.”