The government’s head of public health said the failure of the government’s Covid testing program meant Derbyshire lost the opportunity to avoid tighter lockdowns.
Dean Wallace, Director of Public Health for Derbyshire County CouncilHe now warned that it is “a matter of time, not whether” other areas of the province, Including Derby, To the second level of insurance.
Three districts of Derbyshire – Chesterfield, Ariwash and Northeast Derbyshire – They are set to join Glossopdale at High Peak at Midnight Restraints Level 2.
Families living in these areas will be prohibited from mixing with other families at home, including in bars and restaurants.
Since yesterday’s announcement of pushing these three districts to Level Two, case rates across the county and city have continued to increase.
Wallace says the impact of the additional measures will not be seen until they are in place for two weeks, with an expected increase in cases in the community and hospital.
The High Peak rate is now over 200 cases per 100,000 people in the week of 6-12 October, with Erewash at 184, North East Derbyshire at 168 and Chesterfield at 136. The national average in England is 93.
Derby, which averages 141 cases per 100,000 people, which is higher than in Chesterfield, is still at Tier 1, along with most of England.
Mr. Wallace was asked by the Local Democracy Reporting Service whether it was inevitable that once case rates were advancing at a rapid pace, counties definitely needed additional restrictions.
He said: Yes it was. Once we have seen cases reach a certain level and the regions are constantly paying more than 100 cases per 100,000 people, it becomes difficult to control this through contact tracing. “
At the end of September, an error in the public health data table in England left nearly 16,000 reported cases late in counting and referred to local authorities. It meant the situation was much worse than people realized.
If the right data were available to the heads of health, faster action could have been taken.
Mr Wallace said: “What pushed us over the edge in terms of doing this follow-up was the weekend when we got the retrospective, which changed the picture drastically and if we had that in shuffles and shuffles all week long we could pick that up and maybe we had a chance to keep it for a while A little longer.
“But I think it would have delayed the inevitable once we got to a certain level, to be honest.”
PHE Error saw 704 cases reported in Derbyshire as a whole in the week of September 25 to October 1, nearly three times the number of infections reported in the county at the start of September when there were 262.
Until the inclusion of missing data, reported on September 25 through October 2, the highest number of new confirmed cases in the county and city within 24 hours in the past month was 92.
However, after the absent cases were listed, there were four consecutive days, from September 28 to October 1, with higher totals, and they all totaled more than 100 cases.
“We might have had a chance to postpone the Tier 2 restrictions, but I don’t know if we will be able to stop that. Amber Valley is a good example, we saw cases going up there in Heanor at the start of the month (October) and we took action there.
“If we don’t take action there, I think Amber Valley was an area of intervention, but it isn’t, and it remains one of the lowest rates in the county (112 cases per 100,000 people).”
“Same thing with Glossopdale, we might, through everything that happened, slow that down by two or three weeks, and then once you’ve crossed a certain point, you really can’t do much with contact tracing.”
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Cases in Glossopdale began to spike in early August, and Mr Wallace said national NHS Test and Trace teams had not linked the local area with travel to and from the neighboring hard-hit Tameside area and Greater Manchester.
Mr. Wallace said: “Contact tracing works when the rates are really low and then you can turn it off, and once you are in the community you slow it down rather than stop it.
“Every place in Derbyshire follows this ever-increasing trend, and if it continues everywhere at some point or another, every part of Derbyshire may end up on the second level, and it may be a matter of when, not whether, given the size of the community spread we started.
“ Bolsover, Amber Valley, South Derbyshire and Dales are on the rise but at a slower rate and if we keep increasing steadily and it continues to do so at the end the number of R (injury rate) grows and you need extra measures to have any chance to slow it down.
“What we must remember is that the infection in the next week or two has already been breached due to the way the virus works and the incubation period, so the people who show symptoms next week have already got the virus.
“Any actions we take on Saturday will not affect the next two weeks and all we see in hospitals is the previous list from the past two weeks, so it will take three or four weeks to see the effect and then an additional two weeks to see the effect of that (measures) on the spread.
“Other regions have a relatively high chance of moving to measures in the not-too-distant future.”
He urged people to reduce the amount of social interaction they have with other families now, whether or not they are in second-level restrictions, and act as if everyone they come into contact with has Covid-19.
The case rates per district in Derbyshire per 100,000 for the week 6-12 October are as follows:
- Amber Valley – 112
- Bolsover – 127
- Chesterfield – 136
- Derbyshire Deals – 104
- Derby – 141
- Ariwash – 184
- High peak – 224
- Northeast Derbyshire – 168
- South Derbyshire – 108
For comparison, the rate in England is 93 per 100,000 people. 193 in Leicester; And 880 in Nottingham.
