Decision details

Dr Sakthi Karunanithi, Director of Public Health, Lancashire County provided a current overview on the COVID-19 outbreak.

The Board was signposted to the single source of weekly updates for Lancashire's COVID-19 statistics, which can be found via the following link: https://www.lancashire.gov.uk/covidweekly/.  The Board were informed that if they had any further questions or requirements in terms of data, to contact Dr Karunanithi, email Sakthi.karunanithi@lancashire.gov.uk.

Lancashire is currently in Tier 3, which is a local area level – very high.  Early signs were that the number of new cases reported every day has started to slow down, however this was also combined with fewer people coming forward for tests, which was a slight concern.  The main areas affected in Lancashire are the more deprived areas in the East of the County, as well as in Preston and West Lancashire.  The age groups most affected were older, younger and middle aged individuals; although reducing in the younger age groups, whereas it was still on the upward trend in those with other complications and the over 60s.

There is about two to three weeks gap between the cases rising and the hospital admission rate changing.  The capacity in hospitals was increasingly challenged, impacting on other work to support both physical and mental health.

There is more testing capacity being made available under local influence, in discussions with NHS and Directors of Public Health, and more on the spot testing, particularly for people who are asymptomatic.  This is starting to be rolled out with specific groups of staff within the care sector, police and fire services and the plan is to roll it out to wider groups.

Plans for the vaccination programme will commence with specific groups on a small scale before the beginning of 2021 and then roll out more widely. 

There needs to be continued hard work to reduce the high level of infection to as low as reasonably possible, and that will depend on a number of things:

i)  Community consent and people following the advice, particularly those who are symptomatic or are positive, to support them to remain at home.

ii)  Protecting the vulnerable.

iii)  Case finding, testing, isolation, tracing – more capacity for testing and a successful tracing programme.

iv)  Vaccination programme plan.

v)  Enforcement.

Current concerns are the end of term migration of students going back to family homes for the festive season.

A query was raised about people not getting tested. There appear to be a number of reasons for that, which are:

·  Concerns around isolation

·  People having caring responsibilities

·  Being the key wage earner

·  Lack of support to stay at home.

The Board was asked to encourage people to come forward for testing and ensure that there is support available through the district hubs and the NHS to support those that are isolating.

Resolved:  That the Board noted the update.