"Don't kill granny": Preston City Council's message to residents

The chief executive of Preston City Council has deployed a “don’t kill granny” message to young people to slow the spread of coronavirus after the area had lockdown restrictions reimposed.
Watch more of our videos on Shots! 
and live on Freeview channel 276
Visit Shots! now

Adrian Phillips told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I know our director of public health has said ‘don’t kill granny’ to young people to try and focus the message.

“Young people are inevitably among the brave and the bold, they want to be adventurous and out and about but we know that they have the virus, are more likely to at the moment, they often have less symptoms but they do take it back to their household and the community spread we are seeing we believe in many cases are young people taking it home and catching the virus.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“We’re going to have to repeat it and whether Radio 4 is the correct channel for that I’m not quite sure but we’re using multiple channels and we’re working with community groups who are doing peer to peer comms around.

Preston City CentrePreston City Centre
Preston City Centre

“It’s just trying so many different ways to get the message to all communities, to all areas of our city that the virus is still something to be really wary of.”

He also backed the Local Government Association’s call for councils to have greater powers to close pubs to slow the spread of the pandemic.

“You need responsive powers,” he said. “It is useful to have something that can move quickly and we can make it entirely clear to the licensee or the operator what the consequences are.”