THE leader of Cheshire West and Chester Council has called on the government to introduce a mask mandate.

Speaking at the local authority's Covid-19 Outbreak Board meeting on Friday (September 17) Cllr Louise Gittins, who is also chair of committee, said too many people were not wearing face coverings, despite the requirement being scrapped by the Government in July.

Her comments came after she said how encouraged she had been by the latest hospitalisation figures, which have remained consistent for a few weeks.

She said: "The hospital figures are really reassuring and it is demonstrating that the vaccination does work.

"The numbers of people in hospital does seem to be plateauing.

"My biggest issue at the moment is people not wearing face coverings.

"Our messaging continues to be really clear across Cheshire West and Merseyside about wearing face coverings in crowded indoor spaces.

"I really do believe people should be wearing them when we're asking them to do it.

"Hopefully the government might mandate it soon, but we might have a while to wait for that."

The meeting began with the borough's Director of Public Health Ian Ashworth sending his apologies for not being able to attend after contracting Covid, despite being double jabbed, with Cllr Gittins saying he was too poorly to attend the virtual session.

Cllr Gittins said: "Our meister of Covid has actually caught Covid himself.

"He has been double vaccinated but is currently not well enough to attend the meeting, so he sends his apologies.

"I'm sure on behalf of everyone I'd like to wish him a speedy recovery.

"I know when he attends next time he'll give us the low down on what it was like to have Covid."

Mr Ashworth's usual input at the meeting was provided by his colleague Donald Read, who informed the committee about the latest Covid picture for Cheshire West.

"It is a fluctuating picture," he said about the current level of positive cases.

"Although in the last few days the rate has been dropping down.

"The seven day rate as of September 12 was 385 per 100,000.

"That's still very high, and far higher than we'd like to see it, but I always do take some heart when I see several consecutive days of drop.

"Today's rate is 16 per cent lower than what it was last week."

In terms of hospitalisations, Mr Read said that although hospitals were under pressure, the vaccine was clearly having a significant impact in the correlation between cases and deaths.

He said: "Hospitals are experiencing pressures, but the pressure from Covid is still relatively small, but growing.

"However it does show a significant reduction from the peak in mid January.

"As of September 14 there were 28 patients in the Countess of Chester, 39 in Wirral's Hospital Trust and 44 in Mid Cheshire Hospitals Trust.

"What we are seeing is far fewer patients with far fewer people ending up with the more serious illness.

"Of those in hospital there were two in Chester, four in Wirral and five in Mid Cheshire who required mechanical ventilation."