Bradford leaders, health services and members of the public have been praised by England's Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty.

In response to a question asked at this evening's Downing Street briefing, Professor Whitty applauded the city's imaginative and consistent approach to tackling the Covid-19 virus.

Beth Rigby from Sky News asked: "Some areas, like Bradford, have been living under restrictions throughout the summer and into the autumn.

"Analysis from the Labour party last week showed 19 out of 20 of those areas put into local lockdown restrictions have still not come out of them.

"What is going on? Were they the wrong restrictions, or are people not following the rules?"

In his answer, Chris Whitty said that Bradford had shown "superb leadership".

He said: "The local authority have, the directors of public health have, the local NHS have, in the way that they have tackled this. 

"If they had not done so, and consistently, working with the communities of Bradford, we would be in a substantially worse place than we are at the moment.

Bradford Telegraph and Argus:

"What Bradford is trying to do, and what every area of the country is trying to do, is to find this balance between keeping the rates down without doing unnecessary harm to society, to the economy, and to all the other things that in the long run have major implications.

"I think they [in Bradford] have done a large number of very imaginative things. I see no evidence that this is because the people of Bradford are flouting the rules. I think inevitably, very occasionally people will.

But the evidence, over the country as a whole, is the great majority of people intend to follow the rules and do follow the rules. Because the great majority of people want to protect their neighbours, to protect their family, and to improve the situation once we get through the winter.

"It's going to be difficult, and everybody knows that."