'Difficult time' in East Riding, says public health boss
Andy Kingdom says coronavirus has spread particularly quickly among teenagers
Last updated 27th Jul 2021
East Riding Council’s public health lead has said the area is going through a “very difficult period” with coronavirus cases rising, after control measures were taken away.
Andy Kingdom said coronavirus had spread particularly quickly among teenagers, with 10 to 19 year olds accounting for the biggest share of new cases.
He added people had taken “full advantage” of restrictions lifting on Monday, July 19 and increases were also fuelled in part by more mixing during the Euro 2020 tournament.
It comes as new coronavirus cases in the East Riding rose by 615, or 37.4 per cent, to 2,260 in the seven days up to Tuesday, July 20.
The rolling rate stood at 662.4 per 100,000 people, up from 482.2 in the seven days up to Tuesday, July 13.
Mr Kingdom said an increase in patients in Hull Royal Infirmary and Castle Hill Hospital to 32 from around four previously showed pressure on the NHS locally was mounting.
The director said:
“We’ve gone from seeing less than 10 new cases a day to hundreds each week, it means there’s now so many more people out there who are infected.
“There were 550 cases recorded among the 10 to 19 year olds in the week up to Sunday, July 18 alone.
“The rolling rate for 17 and 18 year olds was more than 300 per 100,000 people alone.
“So coronavirus is now rushing through the population, it’s going to run through younger people.
“The increases show the kind of control we had over the virus spreading previously, most of those measures have been taken away from us now.
“The government’s policy for the next few months appears to be managed increases, but the numbers are already getting a bit too hot for me.
“There’s also now big pressures on hospitals and primary care, not only with rising admissions but also with staff being off because they’re self-isolating.
“We had two deaths in a week recently compared to about one a month before, and that’s just the reported number.
“We’re seeing increases that we haven’t seen before, if we didn’t have so many people vaccinated we’d struggle to cope.
“And now we’re having to work harder to get vaccines in people, our numbers are still good the rate of uptake’s slowing down.
“The clinically vulnerable will be the most worried now, there’s so many more routes for the virus to get to them.”
Mr Kingdom said the government had taken a “calculated gamble” by going ahead with lifting restrictions earlier this month.
But he added communications from ministers had not been good and had sown “confusion” among residents and businesses.
The director said:
“We really needed to have more in our favour before we went ahead with restrictions lifting.
“And I think there needed to be a clear message on people maintaining social distancing and carrying on wearing masks.
“Hospitals and social care services are really struggling now, the last thing we want to do is go into another lockdown.
“Schools have also now finished for the summer, we asked them to keep the bubbles system in place and continue with mask wearing indoors and they’ve worked to keep the numbers down.
“It’s caused some confusion among parents and it probably wasn’t the pill they wanted to swallow but they needed to, there should be a clear message on what pupils and their families can expect by the time they go back in September.
“But in the meantime children won’t be tested for coronavirus as regularly so we won’t know as much in terms of the numbers.”
Mr Kingdom said he would advise residents to continue with social distancing, mask wearing and other measures and assess their own risk when mixing with others.
He added officials were bracing for a “large proportion” of younger people being infected in some way before Christmas as the NHS prepares for a typically busy period.
He said:
“We also need to get more people vaccinated, particularly those under 40 who’ve not had either their first or both jabs.
“This is definitely not over, there’s now more people with the virus than at any time during the pandemic.
“We need to consider the clinically vulnerable who will be nervous and worried now, the chances of them getting coronavirus are much higher now.”