THE director of Public Health Dorset said he “regrets” the debates on when to ease coronavirus restrictions over the last year but said he was feeling “optimistic”.

It has been one year since the first case Covid-19 was recorded in Dorset, and since then more than 35,000 people have had the virus across the county.

And director of Public Health Dorset (PHD), Sam Crowe, said we would need to learn to live with Covid going forward.

Mr Crowe told the Daily Echo: “We have been through the worst, particularly in the BCP area, I think that was really hard for everyone.

“When we first went into lockdown, we were learning about how the virus was transmitting, were having to stand up the tools to fight this.

“NHS Test and Trace was developed, we didn’t have access to wide spread community testing.

“By the time we got into the second wave, my observation was people were taken aback by the speed our infections started to rise. It is a reminder of how quickly this can spread.

“The situation in the hospital was really, really serious. The maximum number of people we had was 130 in the first wave, we had well over 500 for a week or two at the height of the second wave.

“It was pretty scary to be honest, although nobody likes lockdown, until we have more widespread vaccination, it remains the most effective way to bring infections down.”

Speaking on the last year of Covid, Mr Crowe said a lot has been learnt and in the last six months councils have had bigger roles in controlling the virus.

However, he said he regrets the debates about being in lockdown or not.

“This polarisation, you are in lockdown, it is very restrictive versus the need to open up.

“The national debate about opening up driven by the harm on the economy. One of the things we want to get across is living safely with Covid. We are going to have outbreaks, that doesn’t mean we can’t manage it.

“We are still going to have to follow measures, this belt and braces approach, until we know more abut the virus people are still going to obey the hands, face, space rules until we are absolutely sure we have reduced infection rates so low there is very little risk of transmission. People have been brilliant. Going forward let’s continue the theme, let’s not get too ahead of ourselves. As long as people are mindful of that we will get through this.”