Minutes:
The Director for Public Health (DPH) provided the Board with a presentation, based on the data provided that morning.
A map of where we were across the county was shown, for week 52, the week just prior to Christmas, and then moving into week 53 there was a dramatic change and increase in rates across the whole country, the South East was where a large increase was seen moving west and north.
Across Hampshire, Southampton and Isle of Wight, rates were higher than when looking at the more local area it had a rate of 1,171 per 100,000 which had dramatically risen, although it was stabilising a little bit and the rate of increase was slowing down. Rates across ceremonial Hampshire, the 4 upper tier local authorities in our local resilience area (Portsmouth, Southampton, Isle of Wight and Hampshire) the rates across the whole of the pandemic where we are, the Isle of Wight still had low rates per 100,000, although increasing rapidly, the Isle of Wight was still in a positive position overall.
The board were advised that comparing the seven day rates around the region the first wave on the Isle of Wight was quite small compared to now, there was an increase in the spread of the virus, however it seemed to be slowing down slightly which was really positive.
The over 60’s rates were closely monitored as that age group were known to be more seriously ill, and end up in hospital, all age bands were monitored across the Isle of Wight. Also the rate in working age population was monitored as they were more likely to catch covid-19.
The trend was going up again with ventilator beds we know that the numbers are smaller so they fluctuate but we know we have seen a huge increase since the beginning of October. An increase in cases across our systems with people requiring mechanical ventilation for Covid. It’s a busy position but we want to protect our population and our hospitals, and nationally that’s why a lot of work was going on around lockdown as there had been an increase in patients across the country requiring urgent action to be taken.
we know that 96-97% of the new variant and this showed that it doesn’t have increased disease severity, the board were asked to remember that it was quite a new variant. the South African variant was also being monitored, with a higher viral load, which may impact on the body and give worse outcomes. Work to prevent that coming into the country was ongoing.
The board were incredibly concerned about the huge spikes seen here on the island and knew previous speculation about the very rapid changes that from when we were in tier one and they understood that at a number of reasons that might have caused that for example:
· commuter density on ferries,
· that fact that we were in tier one,
· perhaps everyone was more relaxed than they should have been, because they felt safer and therefore, they were mixing more.
Speculation about students returning from other higher infected areas to the Island, second home owners and visitors. It was noted that, during the summer when there were a lot of visitors to the Island, there had been no increase that correlated to it. The DPH advised that the virus thrives on people mixing and people getting together, so we know that the more relaxed people are around those behaviours of social distancing, of hand hygiene and wearing a face covering that the virus is more likely to spread. This new variant was 70% more transmissible. With anything is if there was any lapse in those two metres, or the not wearing of a face covering it is much more likely to spread. Students around the country had been tested before they came home and it is understood that people who travel backwards and forwards for from the Island to the mainland and from the mainland to the Island, was increasing that spread, the more people that moved around the more likely, particularly this new variant is spreading.
The board acknowledged that the Isle of Wight Council’s Environmental Health team in conjunction with local police had issued their first fixed penalty notice, against a local business. The individuals had been issued with fixed penalty notices of £1000.00 each and in conjunction with that people who were also on the premises had been issued with fixed penalty notices by police.
The Chief Executive advised that the Council had introduced covid support officers to support the Environmental Health teams, Covid ambassadors had been used to spread the messages far and wide about hands-face-space and how important it was for people to stay apart. People would resolve the pandemic and whilst the vaccination was coming in, it was still about individual behaviours and personal responsibility that would make the biggest difference and would help us gain control of the rates of cases on the Island, in the fastest possible ways.
It was noted that we needed to keep people safe in other ways, not just from Covid, it’s the Winter season, and the worst time of the season for the hospital we had to protect and look after our most vulnerable from the ordinary winter pressures and problems that they have to deal with. There were very few people on the Isle of Wight now, who don’t know somebody who has caught Covid and there were some people who know people who have died on the Isle of Wight so we can’t be strong enough about that message.
The Leader advised that following a national meeting, the Isle of Wight figures were being followed with interest and how they were being dealt with.