Agenda item

A verbal report will be given on the day to include up-to-date data

Christina Gray provided a verbal update on COVID-19.

She made the following key points:

·       The R rate was now below 50 (at 46) per 100,000. However, the reduction rate was slowing so there was a need to keep pace with this. the Board was reminded that Leicester had gone into lockdown when the R rate was in the 30s and that there was therefore a need to avoid complacency

·       The positivity rate had now reduced from 10% to 1.8%

·       The vaccine rollout had been extremely good with approximately 30% of the whole population of Bristol having been inoculated, although take up of the vaccine was lower in some wards. Pop up and outreach work was going in in some faith based communities to address this

·       The UK Health Regulator had confirmed that the benefits of the vaccine far outweighed the risks of side effects. The instances of blood clots in those who had received the vaccine was far lower than the normal rate and there was not believed to be any causal link

·       The cohorts 1 to 9 consisting of the over 50’s and clinically vulnerable would shortly be vaccinated and accounted for 99% of those who were the most clinically vulnerable at highest risk

·       Whilst vaccination for under 50’s would be paused in April 2021, this would not impact on the target for all adults to be vaccinated by July 2021

·       Containing new variants will be the key priority within the next year or two. An updated vaccine will be produced as a result of work that was being carried out by virologists and pharmaceutical companies who were obtaining the necessary data to keep the vaccine ahead of the virus

·       It was important to stop the chains of transmission. However, there were only about 35 variants of concern in the country which were very small numbers

The Chair thanked the work that had been carried out to ensure the calm and logical message concerning the vaccine, whilst acknowledging that the numbers could mask that there remained areas of concern, such as the homeless. She referred to recent work carried out by Carol Slater and Mohammed Al-Sharif in this area and suggested that a report might be helpful to a future meeting Action: Mark Allen/Sally Hogg to investigate this

In response to questions from Board Members, Christina Gray made the following further points:

·       Information concerning testing referred to both lateral flows and rapid tests. Whilst not all negative results were reported, all positive tests were including all Pillar 2 results

·       In relation to surge testing, there had been over 40,000 additional asymptomatic PCR tests which was about 1% of all those tested. It was noted that all of these had been followed up, isolated and contained. As a result of these, two additional cases had been identified, in comparison with 35 cases identified by traditional enhanced contact tracing

·       Following the concerns that had arisen as a result of misleading recent information concerning the Astra Zeneca vaccine, information would be given for NHS staff to provide to those taking the vaccine

It was also noted that there would shortly be a press release indicating the different side effects arising from each of the two vaccines.