Stockton residents urged to keep getting Covid-19 tests to control spread of the virus

Too few people are coming forward for covid-19 tests in Stockton amid continued concern over the potential impact of the Indian variant of the virus which has taken hold in some parts of the country.

Sarah Bowman-Abouna, the borough’s director of public health, told a health and wellbeing board meeting that testing activity in the town was “quite low”.

She said: “We need to continue to encourage people to get tested where they don’t have symptoms.”

Ms Bowman-Abouna said the North-East as a whole had seen a high rate of increase in the Indian covid variant, but actual numbers of positive cases involving the variant were small.

Figures published last week by Public Health England showed there were 19 covid cases where the Indian variant was present, representing 1.5% of all cases in the North-East, with the organisation due to provide another update imminently.

In Stockton there were 32 positive covid cases in the past seven days, an infection rate of 16.2 per 100,000 population with one covid-related death also being recorded.

This compared to 16.6 across the Tees Valley and a rate of 18.6 per 100,000 in the North-East – placing Stockton fourth highest from 12 local authority areas.

Infection rates were substantially higher in Middlesbrough (34) – where there has been a recent doubling of cases, Newcastle (39.6) and North Tyneside (42.3).

Ms Bowman-Abouna referred to several community testing sites operating in the borough and said work was ongoing to promote the uptake of tests.

Meanwhile, more people were choosing to take tests home as part of a ‘community collect’ service, she said.

On the Indian variant, Ms Bowman-Abouna said: “We know that it is more infectious than the current dominant strain, the Kent variant, but we don’t know how much more and that is the key thing that is being researched nationally.

“We are also not clear yet on the impact and effectiveness of the vaccine on it, although the initial signs are positive.”

Councillor Luke Frost claimed there was an issue with testing in workplaces and also questioned the location of some community testing sites.

Panel chairman, Councillor Jim Beall said: “We can’t put a testing facility on every corner and are trying to put them where they will be best strategically.

“There is the opportunity of going online, I did – it’s relatively straightforward – and literally the next day there it was with the postman, it was quicker than Amazon.”

Mrs Bowman-Abouna said most covid cases were now in younger age groups such as school children and young adults.

She said the over 60s category, who were among the first to be vaccinated, was now seeing really low numbers of virus cases.

While the vaccination roll-out has been widely deemed to be a success, Dr Jonathan Slade, NHS England’s medical director in the North-East and Cumbria and a Teesside GP, said “substantial numbers” of people in vulnerable groups had still to be jabbed against the virus with most residing in deprived communities and areas of high ethnicity.

Mrs Bowman-Abouna said the Tees Valley Clinical Commissioning Group were leading on a vaccine inequalities plan for the area.

This involved clinics being held for asylum seekers and the migrant population, along with individuals who were homeless.