I attended the latest Public Health briefing this morning.  Here are some of the key headlines:

Headlines

• There have been more than 4,800 COVID-19 cases in the county in the past week.
• Corby has the highest COVID rates in all of the county’s towns as the manufacturing hub has now surpassed Northampton as the place with the most cases per 100,000.
• In the past seven days Corby has had 709 cases and now has an infection rate of 981.7 per 100,000 people.

Other local authority rates (in order of lowest to highest) in the most recent seven day period are: 

• East Northants has 387 cases per 100,000 people (366 cases in past week); 
• South Northants’ case rate is 438 per 100,000 (623 cases);
• Kettering’s rate is 512 per 100,000 (521 cases); 
• Daventry has 586 cases per 100,000 (504 cases);  
• Wellingborough’s rate is 616 per 100,000 (491 cases)  
• Northampton has 920 cases per 100,000 (2067 cases).

• there continues to be a higher case rate for those over 60 and this trend continues to rise
• this pattern is then often repeated two weeks later in hospital admissions
• the peak for the second wave is now higher than the first last spring

Hospitals

At time of writing there are 245 patients in Northampton General Hospital and 173 in Kettering General Hospital with COVID

Staff absences at our hospitals continues to provide challenges – at time of writing with total base of 13,000 combined for Northampton and Kettering General hospitals,  there were 1000 absent staff with around 1% being COVID related.

Care Homes

After a downward trend in care homes,  cases now seem to be on an upward trend again.

Excess Deaths

It is reported that the UK has now over 100,000 excess deaths (this includes COVID but also other illnesses such as Cancer and Heart conditions).  The message remains the health service remains open to all those with health conditions that aren’t COVID related.

New Variants

There is a great deal of concern about new variants of COVID.  They appear to have a 50 – 70% higher rate of transmissibility compare to the original strain.  The message was loud and clear that while treatments have improved we still have an extremely dangerous situation.  The  increased transmissibility means that more people are testing positive.  The more people that have the disease means that the more people in vulnerable groups are more likely to catch it.  The more infections that there are also increases the possibility of even more variants.

Plasma

UPDATED 16th January

We have temporarily stopped collecting plasma.

Results from clinical trials do not show evidence that plasma has an overall benefit in patients admitted to hospital with coronavirus.

Full information here:

https://www.nhsbt.nhs.uk/news/recovery-trial-update/

Follow the rules

There is strong evidence that following the rules work so please stick to them.

Follow lockdown,  Stay at home if you can.  Wear your mask in supermarkets for shopping.  Wash hands regularly and use sanitiser.  If you touch things or surfaces when out and about remember it can spread in this way so always wash hands.  Ensure that you stick to the 2m metre distancing rule.

Vaccines

45,000 vaccines in Northamptonshire have now been administered across Northamptonshire in the over 80s group (this includes a mix of first and second doses).  Northamptonshire will now be following the national guidelines of the second dose being at the 12 week mark.  Next week focus will move to the 75  – 80 year age group.  The targeting will move down in 5 year age blocks.  

Vaccines are being administered through the 16 Primary Care Networks, so for Brixworth the centre is Weedon.    There will be a vaccination centre opening in Northampton by the end of the month.

People have reported mild side affects from a sore arm (like the flu vaccination),  a headache for a few hours with very few having ‘flu like’ symptoms.

It takes around 7 – 10 days to build immunisation.  However,  those vaccinated are still urged to follow all of the guidelines as there is no evidence that the vaccination stops the spread of the disease.

Warnings  some people have received fake texts alleging to be from the NHS asking for personal details for bank details.  This is a fraud.  The NHS will NEVER ask for bank details.

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