Hartlepool set to remain in Tier 3 for Christmas, despite 'awful lot of work' bringing down covid rates

Craig Blundred, Hartlepool’s director of public health, said early indications from the most up to date data is the Covid-19 case rate ‘may have dropped’ below 200 cases per 100,000 of the population in recent days.

The Covid-19 rate for Hartlepool was 268 cases per 100,000 on November 26, and dropped to 219 according to December 5 figures.

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Speaking to the outbreak control engagement working group, Mr Blundred praised residents for their efforts so far, and urged them to continue to be cautious over the Christmas period.

However he added the fall in the rate may not be enough for the authority to be moved from Tier 3 yet, with a review of the tier restrictions to be made on December 16

Mr Blundred said: “The residents have put in an awful lot of work to get to this point, and time and sacrifice, and we should really give credit to people for that.

“We’ve got to keep going to keep these numbers down and keep them falling.

“We aren’t out of the woods yet, we do still have a number of problems with the number of cases we have.

“We have had quite a significant reduction in our rate…I think that’s positive but not enough to really, I think, bring us down to the rates we really want to see to get us out of Tier 3.”

Mr Blundred also called for a big push over the Christmas period to follow restrictions to help keep Covid-19 levels down, adding he fears a spike over the festive season.

He said: “My biggest worry is a spike after Christmas, I don’t want to see that in Hartlepool, we’re driving the figures down at the moment.

“It’s a small sacrifice to do that over the Christmas period."

He added: “We have had a long haul to get here and we know people are weary and getting Covid fatigue as well, but it’s just one last push I think to make sure we get through the winter period.”

Cllr Shane Moore, Hartlepool Borough Council leader, also praised the efforts of residents to date at the meeting.

He added he had a call with North East leaders and the Government Minister of State for Regional Growth and Local Government Luke Hall on Friday, and ‘pushed hard’ the case for the region.

He said: “We pushed extremely hard for the case for the Tees Valley especially, the indicators are all showing improvements, and in their own words, very good improvements in many areas.

“We really stressed and pushed home the message that our people have done extremely well, they’ve done everything they’ve been asked to do over the past month or so, as a local authority we’ve done that as well.”

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Cllr Moore also said he asked for reassurances that local authorities will ‘not be penalised’ over worries of what might happen after the festive period, following the Government decision to relax restrictions for five days over Christmas.

He said: “That was a political decision by the Government to allow those five days.

“What they can’t do now is penalise local authorities like ours for doing the right thing over the past six weeks or more because they’re worried about what might happen after Christmas.

“Otherwise my real concern is we’ll lose trust and the respect of the public, because they’ll no longer listen, because they’ll see the goalposts have moved time after time.”

Council officers therefore stressed it remains key they reinforce messages about social distancing, hand hygiene and about mask wearing where appropriate throughout the Christmas period.

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