Peak of covid cases in North Yorkshire expected this week
The case rates in some areas of Yorkshire have reached nearly 2000 per 100,000 people
Last updated 13th Jan 2022
There is a warning we could hit the peak of Covid cases in North Yorkshire in the next few days, according to the regional chair of the British Medical Association.
Dr Brian McGregor, who is also Medical Secretary at YOR Local Medical Committee and a Bramham GP, said rates appeared to be stabilising after seeing a huge rise since Christmas and New Year.
He is urging people to take up vaccination, particularly booster jabs, to prevent becoming seriously ill as immunity may have waned from when people had their first two doses.
He said:
"We're like an elastic band stretched very, very thin. If it goes much further it may snap and break completely. We're doing our absolute upmost to keep things under control, but let's not make any bones about it; the NHS is under a lot of pressure.
"We've seen in the last five weeks in our area that we've gone from around three to four hundred cases per 100,000 up to around 1600, even 2000 cases per 100,000 people so it has been a very rapid rise and that's then lead to pressure on the service.
"If you think back to the very early pandemic, they shut down Leicester to the rest of the country for 150 cases per 100,000 people. So this is getting on for seven to ten fold. People want to get on with their lives and I completely understand that but there needs to be a sense of responsibility in all of this as well.
"We get a lag of about seven to ten days between the onset of the infection and then those who get the very severe reaction who require hospital support and help so we know and we can predict that numbers will go up in hospitals."
The infection rate in North Yorkshire as of 8 January 2022 stands at 1,618 per 100,000 people, compared to the England average of 1,674 per 100,000. City of York reported for the week ending 7 January that the rate was 1,609 per 100,000 people.