Covid-19 update, Harrogate the lowest infection rate in North Yorkshire and Hospital inpatients down by 24%

This is an update from the media briefing from the North Yorkshire Local Resilience Forum. (2 December 2020)

The following report comes the Supt Mike Walker, North Yorkshire Police Gold Commander, Dr Victoria Turner, the North Yorkshire lead for test and tracing, Amanda Bloor, Accountable Officer, North Yorkshire CCGs, Richard Webb, NYCC, Corporate Director of Health and Adult Services.

North Yorkshire has seen infection rates and Covid-19 inpatient rates to greatly reduce over the week.

Harrogate is now the lowest in the county at 92 per 100,000, that’s against a UK average of 153 per 100,000.

Hospital inpatient cases have reduced by 24% in the week.

The panel couldn’t answer the question what a substantial meal was but deferred it as “expecting people to work within the spirit of the guidelines” – we have requested information following the meeting.

7 day infection rate/ 100,000

• England’s average 153.0
• North Yorkshire 106.9
• Selby 106.9
• Scarborough 127.8
• Craven 127.8
• Ryedale 102.9
• Richmond 93.1
• Harrogate 92.0
• Hambleton 98.6

Tier 1 typically have around 50 per 100,000.

Lincoln Sargeant, Director of Public Health, North Yorkshire County Council “There will be an inevitable rebound from mixing over Christmas”

Cases in care homes

• 235 care homes
• 64 have a single outbreak
• 51 have outbreaks (1 or more cases)

Testing

Good capacity for testing at all sites.

Currently, have fixed testing sites at Harrogate, Scarborough, Northallerton and Selby.

Harrogate is currently testing around 100 per day (30% of capacity) and Scarborough is being used at around 50% capacity.

Positive test results are less than 5%,  whereas in September it was double that.

PCR testing only picks up around 75% of positive cases.

Lateral Flow Testing is being looked at for pockets of outbreaks, rather than region-wide.

Weekend track and trace is being expanded from 10 to 4 to 9 to 5.

Hospitals

Patients in North Yorkshire Hospitals with Covid-19

• Total in North Yorkshire, 206 inpatients, a reduction of 66
• Harrogate 22, a reduction of 9
• York 36, a reduction of 29
• Scarborough 53, a reduction of 6
• South Tees, 95 a reduction of 22
• Airedale 66, a reduction of 26

Staff absences have improved, down to 450 from 520

90% attendance rates for schools

1 school is fully closed and around 25 with some form of partial closure.

No plans for early Christmas closing of schools.