'Considerable drop' in infection rates says East Riding health boss
People in Bridlington and the East Riding are being urged to continue sticking to the Coronavirus rules to bring infection rates down.
People in Bridlington and the East Riding are being urged to continue sticking to the Coronavirus rules.
It is to help bring infection rates down and to prevent any changes to the post-lockdown roadmap dates.
Andy Kingdom, Director of Public Health in the East Riding, said:
"The East Riding has done relatively well although we've lost 750 people prematurely because of the virus, but that's much better than it could have been considering rates elsewhere and some of the concerns we had at the start.
"I think three things have really helped us; one is the co-operation of the public, without that figures would have been much higher and people have stuck to the basics and followed the rules. Secondly, managing outbreaks, so when we've had an outbreak we've managed to get on top of it quickly and finally, the vaccination programme has been an incredible success. incredible uptake and our figures are incredibly high.
"We've seen a considerable drop in the East Riding, our infection rate per 100,000 has fallen to between 60 and 70 now. It sat at 140 for quite a while and it's halved, that means that where before we were seeing maybe 450-500 new cases a week, now it's down to closer to 230-240 so it's a big drop and heading downwards.
"That drop has been at the highest in the older groups so in the people who are 80 plus, and we've seen that fall considerably after the vaccination programme and that's really important because those are the groups who were most likely to end up in hospital and die prematurely. We've seen that rate fall in 80 pluses, 60 pluses right across the East Riding.
"It's one step at a time. It's not inevitable we will hit those roadmap dates and open up. We need to see what happens and take it cautiously. If we can break the link between case, hospitalisation and premature death then we can open up on those dates as set but we need to see what happens.
"So over the next three to four weeks, we will be studying really closely what the infection numbers are in communities and schools. I think because of what we've done with schools then if families and communities stick together and follow the rules then we should be OK. There might be a slight increase but we won't see that translate into more hospitalisations.
"Because we've vaccinated so many people now there are more people protected, but there's still many people who are not protected yet so it's a balance. We need to follow the rules step-by-step and keep vaccinating all the time so in the end the virus has nowhere to go to, there's too many people vaccinated and people are following the rules."