Amber warning for Dorset as Coronavirus cases rise

Coronavirus cases in Dorset are on the rise after a 63 case jump in the last 7 day period.

The recent jump is attributed to outbreaks at schools, care homes, workplaces and even one hospital ward. Although, it's thought that household transmission is where the virus is most commonly spreading.

Public Health Dorset are urging us to take extra care to help slow the spread of the virus.

Sam Crowe, Director of Public Health Dorset said:

"We changed our messaging deliberately, and outbreak management plan, to issue a sort of amber warning, as it were, asking people to act to avoid further spike in cases and to do all we can to avoid having additional measures.

"There's obviously lots of anxiety going on about the very difficult decisions that are being taken to look at whether additional measures are required where cases are rising quickly.

"Locally, I would just like to reassure people that we regularly discuss these issues and the need to be prepared, should we have to start to have that conversation about the need to move to a higher alert level"

There are now 64 caes per 100,000 in Dorset - that's below the South West average of 84 per 100,000.

Currently, there are around 44 people in hospital beds with the virus in the county.

Sam added:

"What we know from looking at the pattern of transmission in other areas of England that a little bit further ahead in this current increase in infections is that the infection rate Rose very very rapidly in younger age groups 18 to 30 year olds, but quite quickly you saw increasing infection rates in the 45 to 65 year olds and over 65 age groups.

"When that happens unfortunately that's when you can have more serious disease with subsequent increases in hospital admissions, and sad to say also occasionally leading to deaths."

He told a live broadcase on the Dorset Council UK youtube page that it is important that we're not complacent in order to avoid futher deaths.

Household transmission remains the most common area for catching the virus, but more and more staff are testing positive in care homes.

Sam said that's a good thing, in a way;

"We're still seeing lots of care home staff testing positive, which is actually a good thing because that's off the back of the regular testing that's going into our care homes.

"So, unlike earlier in the pandemic where we didn't have testing at such scale, we now have regular, repeated and routine testing of staff working in care homes and that helps us to protect the residents by acting quickly to make sure that those staff are isolating, making sure we've got support for infection prevention and control going into the home and as I said protecting the residents from testing positive and contracting COVID"