PM's lockdown announcement came as a shock to Northamptonshire health chiefs

Boris Johnson's lockdown announcement came as a shock to health chiefs in Northamptonshire.

The county's Director of Public Health, Lucy Wightman, confessed she did not think the Prime Minister was about to make such a dramatic move.

She said: "I hadn't thought the PM would take that step when he had been adamant until Saturday that he was not going to despite evidence presented to him by Sage and others which suggested this was the required action.

"Looking at the numbers, I do think this is the right thing to do from the point of view of getting on top of the current increase in cases.

"I do recognise that we need to do more around mental health and the economy and that a number of businesses will suffer.

"But if we don't get on top of this, we will end up with a much longer lockdown which will have an even more detrimental affect on the economy and people's mental health."

Sage — the scientific group advising the Government — recommended stepping up restrictions more than a month ago.

Instead, the PM introduced a three-tier local approach with Northamptonshire placed in the lowest tier as 'medium risk'.

But, on Saturday, Mr Johnson changed tack claiming evidence showed the NHS would be overwhelmed by coronavirus patients within six weeks if the virus' spread continued at the same rate.

READ THIS: Independent businesses that will be offering takeaways, deliveries and click-n-collect during the lockdownAnd Mrs Wightman admitted that Northamptonshire's two main hospitals at Northampton and Kettering are "just about managing."

She said: "Our hospitals are continuing with planned activities, operations and and diagnostics and things like that, as well as coping with current increase in Covid cases.

"But the numbers are increasing week on week and that is going to be a challenge over the winter unless this lockdown has the effect we all hope it does.

"We are still at significant risk here of getting a point where we will have to start cancelling scheduled operations and scheduled diagnostics if numbers continue to rise as they are."

Government figures released yesterday showed 140 new positive Covid-19 tests in Northamptonshire during the latest 24-hour period and 1,074 in the last seven days.

Data analysts calculate the number of new cases over a seven-day period assuming each area has an equal population of 100,000. Northamptonshire's current rate using figures up to yesterday is 143.5.

Northampton's rate is 188.3; East Northants 168.2; South Northants 139.7; Wellingborough 131.7; Daventry 119.8; Kettering 88.4 and Corby 83.1.

READ THIS: "Please don't default to Amazon" — Northampton shops' plea to customers ahead of second lockdown