East Riding public health boss on lockdown anniversary
East Riding Council’s public health lead has said he did not expect the coronavirus pandemic to be as deadly one year on from the first national lockdown.
East Riding Council’s public health lead has said he did not expect the coronavirus pandemic to be as deadly one year on from the first national lockdown.
East Riding Council’s Public Health Director Andy Kingdom said he expected several milder of coronavirus but added he “wouldn’t have believed” a vaccine could be developed so soon.
Mr Kingdom added it showed public health bodies needed more resources and the current situation of some working more than a year with three or four days off was “unsustainable”.
The comments come as the country marks one year since the first national lockdown began on Tuesday, March 23.
They also follow statements from Health Secretary Matt Hancock that supplies of vaccines would be “tighter” in April but no appointments cancelled after warnings of looming shortages.
Mr Kingdom said letters such as the one from NHS England warning local public health officials about supply issues “weren’t unusual”.
He said:
“Supplies of the vaccine have already been lumpy and bumpy.
“But saying that I didn’t think we’d got the top nine priority groups vaccinated by mid-April and we’re still on course to do that.
“Before this we were moving really quickly with the roll out and I was hoping we’d get to the younger groups quicker, but this is a bump along the way.
“There have been some issues with appointments in Beverley but more with people getting ones for second doses moved to 11 weeks after the first rather than getting them four or five weeks afterwards.
“What this does do is allow us to mop up those in the elderly and clinically extremely vulnerable groups who haven’t had the vaccine yet.
“The benefits of getting them vaccinated are much higher than for the younger groups because they’re most at risk of ending up in hospital.
“Residents shouldn’t worry, they will still get their vaccine.”
Mr Kingdom said he still remembered first following infection rates in Wuhan, China in January last year when it dawned on officials the impact would be serious.
The director said:
“I remember getting the phone call about the first British patient from York being treated in Castle Hill Hospital.
“I thought there would be several waves and we knew then that in summer things would be better but autumn and winter would be worse.
“But if you’d have told me we’d be on course to get every adult vaccined by July I wouldn’t have believed you, I’d have thought we might have started the programme then.
“Public health officials thought it would last longer than it has, but I didn’t expect there to be as many deaths.
“It was a shock, and we realised we didn’t have enough resources in public health bodies to deal with it.
“There’s been a decade of under investment in public health, we don’t have enough capacity or specialists.
“So one of the lessons from this is that we need investment in public health, if we don’t get those resources in place we’ll regret it.
“But judging by the history and by the government’s latest public health settlement of a 1 per cent increase in funding, I’m not confident.”
The director said if he could go back and do things differently he would have called for tougher restrictions much sooner even if that would unpopular.
Mr Kingdom said:
“You need to tell people the truth and treat them like adults, we need to give them as much information as possible as soon as possible.
“This is a once in a several generations pandemic, my team tried their hardest with the resources we had.
“The trouble with big disease outbreaks is at first we warn politicians and they complain we’re making too much of a fuss about it and then the situation worsens and they complain we didn’t warn them quickly enough.
“We can move around the world much easier now than people have before, so viruses and diseases can spread quickly.
“Flu is the one public health officials worry about the most, although coronavirus can mutate it’s more stable compared to flu.
“We were expecting a pandemic could have been caused by an avian flu virus outbreak for instance.”
Mr Kingdom said he felt the pandemic had “shone a light” on broader social inequality while bringing home personal lessons.
He said:
“People who have the most resources have coped best, but those without and who often have health problems putting them more at risk haven’t.
“On a personal level I’d say we need to value living a bit more.
“Hold your family and loved ones a little closer and don’t take the pint down the pub or the visit to your grandma for granted.
“About 800 people have died in the East Riding, then there’s the impact on their families, care home and hospital staff, it’s changed people’s lives.
“I think when we get to the point where we could sit in an indoor space like the theatre, laughing and enjoying together without thinking about coronavirus, we’ll know we’ve achieved what we need to.”