A pensioner from Barnsley has said she doesn’t ‘give a sod’ about the ‘ridiculous’ tier three restrictions coming into force in the region this weekend.
The South Yorkshire areas of Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield will join Manchester, Liverpool and Lancashire in the highest alert level from midnight on Saturday.
Households will be banned from mixing indoors and pubs, bars, betting shops, adult gaming centres, casinos and soft play centres will close. Gym classes will not be allowed, but gyms will remain open.
The 83-year-old Barnsley resident boldly told the BBC she is ‘not going to be fastened in a house when the government have got it all wrong’.
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The shopper said: ‘I think it’s all ridiculous, we should never have been in lockdown. All the people who were vulnerable should have been helped and kept home safe.
‘And all the rest of us, I’m 83, I don’t give a sod.
‘I look at it this way, I’ve not got all that many years left of me and I’m not going to be fastened in a house when the government have got it all wrong.
‘How can we get the country on its feet? Money-wise? Where’s all the money?
‘By the end of this year there’s going to be millions of people unemployed and you know who’s going to pay for it? All the young ones. Not me, because I’m going to be dead.’
Members of the public praised the pensioner’s honesty, with Richard Morgan tweeting: ‘Now if only our politicians had the same honest courage and common sense as this fine lady.
‘That’s what we need and what we are so lacking.’
But others were less enthusiastic about her views.
Jacqui Wilkinson from Huddersfield tweeted: ‘What a selfish attitude!’
It all comes after South Yorkshire agreed a deal with the Government which will see the highest level of coronavirus restrictions imposed from Saturday.
That was driven by concern about infection rates across the area which range from 285 people per 100,000 in Doncaster up to 402 people per 100,000 in Sheffield.
The region will receive a £41 million support package, but Sheffield City Council’s leader Julie Dore pleaded with ministers to ‘do the right thing’ and offer extra support to all tier three areas.
The deal follows bitter wrangling over money with Greater Manchester which resulted in the highest level of restrictions being imposed from Whitehall without an agreement.
Boris Johnson told MPs he would now bypass mayor Andy Burnham and offer £60 million to the region’s local councils.
Sheffield City Region’s Labour mayor Dan Jarvis said he had ‘moved heaven and earth to secure the maximum amount of resource that we could’, adding: ‘I honestly don’t think I could have got any more money out of the Government.’
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: ‘A failure to act now would only lead to tougher and longer lasting restrictions later.
‘I understand the sacrifice people in South Yorkshire have already made and the enormous impact further measures will have on people’s lives.’
It comes as a further 26,688 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus were recorded in the UK as of 9am on Wednesday, which is the highest figure reported for a single day in Britain since the beginning of the pandemic.
The Government also said a further 191 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19, as of Wednesday. This brings the UK total to 44,158.
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source https://metro.co.uk/2020/10/22/barnsley-pensioner-83-says-i-dont-give-a-sod-about-new-tier-3-lockdown-13461599/