The North Yorkshire Local Resilience Forum met this afternoon to brief the media (30 December 2020).
Main Points
- All of North Yorkshire will move to tier 3 early on 31 December 2020
- Hospitality will now have to close, but can do a takeaway service.
- Mixing should now no longer take place in gardens, but only wide open spaces.
- Recommendation to not move out of tier 3.
- It was said that they “need to believe that the new variant was in North Yorkshire” – but there was not confirmed evidence it was.
- Being reviewed weekly or every two weeks.
- Believed to be in a surge phase.
Tier allocation
Richard Flinton chair of the Resilience Forum said that the country was going through a surge phase and that it was the right thing to do now, to place all of North Yorkshire into tier 3. Questioned about if a district by district tier allocation was appropriate, he believed possibly in the future, but all districts had seen a surge.
North Yorkshire sudden increases
Richmond, Ryedale and Hambleton have seen more significant increases in infection rates. The group didn’t have an explanation as to why there had been a sudden increase in those areas or the action to reduce, other than the standard messages.
7 day infection rate/ 100,000 (week to 26 December)
- England Average 387 (up 104)
- North Yorkshire 189 (up 60)
- Scarborough 213 9 (down 34.2)
- Craven 137 (up 4)
- Selby 185 (up 43.8)
- Harrogate 126 (up 39.6)
- Richmond 222 (up 104.7)
- Ryedale 179 (up 99.5)
- Hambleton 292 (up 214.5)
7 day infection rate/ 100,000 (week to 21 December)
- England Average 282.2
- North Yorkshire 129.0
- Scarborough 253.2
- Craven 133.0
- Selby 141.2
- Harrogate 86.4
- Richmond 117.3
- Ryedale 79.5
- Hambleton 77.5
Hospitals
The NHS or CCG did not attend the meeting, we have no update on the number of inpatient cases with Covid-19.
It was stated that the admission rate for Harrogate hospital was believed to be stable.
Testing
Testing was maintained over the holiday period
The percentage of tested cases coming back positive was not reported at the meeting “due to a dashboard problem”, but it was said it was believed to be 4% to 9%.
Support for business
Support would be based on rateable value for those that need to close.
<£15K, £1334 per month
£15k to £30K, £2,000 per month
£30k support would be £3K per month
Care homes
175 people at or working at care homes are impacted – including known cases that are without symptoms.
46 care homes have 1 or more cases
39 care homes have 1 case
