County-wide call to pause communal worship during lockdown

Directors of Public Health from across Lancashire, including Dominic Harrison from Blackburn with Darwen, have written an open letter about communal prayer and worship during lockdown. Read it below:

As Directors of Public Health representing Lancashire, we are strongly advising all faith communities to pause communal prayer and worship during the lockdown period, to reduce the possible spread of the new Covid variant.

We recognise that this is a big request, but it will help to protect our communities at this
critical stage of the pandemic.

While we can’t require our faith communities to do this, we are asking everyone to make
this temporary change to protect each other.

You have already made changes to your worship arrangements, but we are asking for
caution at this difficult and concerning time.

We’re seeing increasing numbers of cases in Lancashire, and worrying increases in the
number of people hospitalised from Covid, as well as increasing numbers of deaths. NHS
and hospital capacity is under enormous strain across Lancashire.

Communal worship has not been banned under new lockdown, but we know that there are
significant infection risks, due to people socialising before and after worship.

We know that many people who have tested positive for Covid haven’t shown any
symptoms.

Over the past 10 months, we know that there have been significant disruption to the usual
worship and celebrations which people would usually take part in.

Thank you to our faith groups here in Lancashire for your continuing support to deal with
Covid and its effect on our communities. You have helped your communities in so many
different ways during these difficult times.

If you decide to continue with communal prayer and worship during lockdown, despite our
strong advice on this issue, then we advise you to undertake a new, revised and detailed risk assessment of your current infection control procedures.

The new variant of the virus is increasing the seven-day rates by more than 250% in some
Local Authority areas of the North West, and is up to 70% more infectious. This new
increased risk of transmission will require a much higher level of infection control and
compliance, to achieve the same level of safety as the previous measures.

Yours faithfully,

Dominic Harrison, Director of Public Health for Blackburn with Darwen Council

Dr Sakthi Karunanithi, Director of Public Health for Lancashire County Council

Dr Arif Rajpura, Director of Public Health for Blackpool Council