More needed to combat 'explosive' Kent coronavirus strain in East Riding
The warning comes from the county's public health director
Last updated 21st Feb 2021
East Riding residents must redouble their efforts to stop the Kent coronavirus variant now accounting for 97 per cent of new cases, the council’s public health lead has said.
East Riding Council’s Public Health Director Andy Kingdom said recent outbreaks in local businesses and Humber Prison had shown how quickly the new coronavirus strain could spread.
He added it was now “dominant” in both the East Riding and Hull where it accounts for about 95 per cent of all new cases.
Mr Kingdom’s comments come as the NHS has also introduced a new system which has so far seen about 2,500 people in the East Riding added to shielding lists.
The director said they and an estimated further 2,500 to be added next week would be in line to receive vaccinations sooner.
Mr Kingdom said:
“There were 407 people in the East Riding infected with coronavirus from Tuesday, February 9 to Monday, February 15.
“It’s not below 400 as I was hoping, a couple of work place outbreaks and one at Humber Prison kept our numbers up.
“There were more than 50 cases in Humber Prison alone and Public Health England teams have since stepped in, BUT it shows how explosive the Kent variant of coronavirus can be, it results in more cases more quickly than the earlier strain.
“What we would have gotten away with before we no longer can, there’s no headroom left now, we’ve got to get this right.
“Rates among our elderly population particularly have continued to fall and we’re expecting further drops in the next 10 days.
“But it’s unclear how much of that is to do with lockdown and how much is to do with the vaccine.”
Mr Kingdom said despite concerns over the now locally dominant Kent strain, public health officials were becoming more confident vaccines would still work against it.
The director said:
“The rise of the new strain is the course we expected this to take.
“The Kent strain’s the King of the Castle here now, but it’s competing with others and it’s a race to see which one gets into people’s bodies the quickest and they can’t all get in.
“There may well be more strains by the Autumn, but as long as we keep vaccinating people the numbers will come down because we’re pretty sure the vaccine works against it.
“But it might be the case that we have to give people booster jabs in the Autumn.
“We’re going to be living with some form of coronavirus for years and we’re going to have to find ways of coping with it.
“I hope it will be milder and affect us more like flu or measles does so we won’t need these shutdowns.”
Mr Kingdom said some residents with underlying health conditions could now be asked to shield after the NHS introduced a new scoring system to determine those who qualify.
Around 15,000 people had been asked to shield before the introduction of the new system, according to official data.
He said:
“The new system takes into account several factors like people’s existing conditions, obesity, ethnic background and other factors which. we now know affect them more seriously.
“Those factors are then added together and if they reach a certain score it will push that person up into priority group six, meaning they’ll get a vaccination letter.
“So it’s not the case that if you just have asthma for example you’ll be pushed up, but if you have that and there are other factors too then you will.”
Mr Kingdom said next week would be “really important” ahead of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s expected statement on lockdown going forward on Monday, February 22.
The director said:
“The prime minister needs to send the right signals, this needs to be about being able to cope with coronavirus for as long as possible but without the punishing element of strict lockdowns.
“We’re still going to need to take the treatment for a little longer, it’s like being on a course of antibiotics, you have to stick it out until the end even if it feels like it’s not working.
“The council is here to help anyone struggling to shield for income or other reasons, we’re aware that we’re all in the storm together but we’re not in the same boat.
“If you have family to support you, a well paid job, a home and good internet then you can shield and work from home without issue.
“But if you’re a single parent with a gig type job living in a rented flat then it’s going to be more difficult, we can’t take a laissez-faire approach.
“I’d also like to see the Test and Trace system become more local, when we’ve had access to local data we’ve been able to get on top of outbreaks much quicker and target messages to specific areas we know about.
“I’m much more confident about things than I was before, but this is up for grabs now.
“The tug of war between us and the virus is going our way, but we all need to pull together.”