High West Jesmond residents have expressed concern after receiving anti-lockdown leaflets through their letterboxes. The leaflets claim that “lockdowns cost lives but have not stopped Covid,” and urge people to ignore lockdown rules and “go back to the old normal”.

The leaflet is being distributed by a group called “Back to Normal” which describes itself as a “new, public-facing, grassroots group” and claims to have more than 900 members. According to its website, members are “not covid sceptics, just lockdown sceptics,” who argue that lockdown measures “are doing more harm than good”.

Resident Nick Simpson told JesmondLocal: “I noticed the leaflet around 6pm one evening. I assume that the leaflets are only posted in the evenings, maybe so that the people responsible are less visible.

“I am absolutely livid. It was posted on a day when over 1,500 more Covid deaths had been announced. I have friends who are medics, suffering horribly to try and save as many people as they can. Yet someone still wants to go through the effort of posting myths like this through people’s doors.”

The Back to Normal group is encouraging members to order leaflets in “multiples of 500” and distribute them in their local area. According to the website, almost 250 people have done this already. Whilst its aim is to post 1 million leaflets, they have apparently managed 280,000. One angry Jesmond resident took to Twitter: “Posted on our street yesterday, late afternoon/ early evening. Furious.”

Similar flyers have also been reported in Norwich, Sussex and Pembrokeshire. Newcastle city centre witnessed two anti-lockdown protests in September and December.

Wendy Taylor, a doctor at the Freeman Hospital and councillor for Dene and South Gosforth commented: “Great progress is being made, but it is abundantly clear that the threat of the virus is still very real and we must all continue to follow the regulations in full.”