A HEARTFELT plea to combat coronavirus cases and abide by restrictions has been made to a community.

North Yorkshire county councillor for the Northallerton Town South Ward Caroline Dickinson called on the town council to back her appeals for residents to take responsibility and report gatherings of people which could cause the spread of the virus.

Cllr Dickinson said: “We are in the second lockdown and there has been an increase in cases, they have gone up in Northallerton and we do have to keep fighting this to keep numbers down.

“Despite our best efforts these are continuing to rise. I do ask that everyone takes responsibility for their actions, if we are to protect ourselves.

“North Yorkshire Police did issue the highest number of penalty notices. In Scarborough the numbers of viruses have increased three fold.

“If any of you know of any gatherings please report it to me or the Department of Public Health so actions can be put in place to stop the spread of the virus.

“People must keep this in mind you must stay at home and minimise travelling and only go out for essential reasons.

“We don’t want the numbers to keep rising, we don’t want to be in a higher tier than before we went in when we come out of this lockdown. It is important we abide by those rules we want to be able to open up again.

“We were close to tier two before lockdown so please report anything.”

Northallerton, along with the rest of North Yorkshire, was in the lowest Tier One before the latest lockdown, although there were warnings at the end of October from Richard Webb, North Yorkshire County Council’s Director for Health that that status was on a knife-edge.

It was announced last week that further permanent local testing sites are being created in North Yorkshire including in Northallerton to support the ongoing battle to stop the virus. Permanent walk in testing sites are already open in Scarborough and Harrogate.

Richard Flinton, chair of the Resilience Forum, said: “These sites allow us to place mobile testing units in other areas that need them the most, allowing more people the opportunity to book a test.

“Collectively, we can make a difference and help to bring about considerably reduced rates of coronavirus infection.”

For Hambleton the number of cases to November 11 was down 23 per cent according to Public Health England figures, with 189 cases, down 57 from the week before and a Covid-19 infection rate of 206.3 cases per 100,000 people.