Warning over 'concerning Christmas situation' in Hartlepool as health chiefs count covid figures

Craig Blundred, Hartlepool’s director of public health, warned the Covid-19 rate in the region is still too high despite falling in recent weeks.

Speaking at Monday’s Health and Wellbeing Board, he said the latest seven day case rate for Hartlepool is around 241 cases per 100,000 of the population.

He urged residents to continue positive work in following guidelines and restrictions to further reduce rates, and also called for caution around the Christmas period.

Mr Blundred said: “There is some positive news in that the cases are coming down, but I think we can’t be complacent, we can’t take our eye off the ball with this.

“I think we’ve got a concerning situation coming up with Christmas, I think we need to be making sure we’ve got the messaging clear for people out there.

“We need to make sure that as we go forward, we keep that messaging out there, we keep encouraging people to maintain their social distancing and their good hand hygiene, appropriate use of masks and all of those messages.”

It was noted the previous spike in cases, when the region recorded a case rate of around 568 per 100,000 according to Mr Blundred, coincided with the period just before the latest lockdown came in.

Officers said they believed this was a result of people going out for the last time before lockdown was in place, plus a combination of half term week and Halloween, but the rate has been coming down since.

However Mr Blundred warned despite positive news regarding the Covid-19 vaccine, people will still be following precautionary measures ‘for a long time yet’.

He said: “We’ve got the good news about the vaccines coming online but we still need to put the messages out there people can’t relax the precautions at all.

“It’s really vitally important we maintain those measures because we are at that high rate and we do need to get the numbers down quite significantly still.

“I think it’ll be a while before all of the protection from the vaccine comes across the population, so we’re going to have to do these precautionary measures for a long time yet.”

Cllr Shane Moore, Hartlepool Borough Council leader, said although residents need to continue to follow Covid-19 guidelines and restrictions to drive rates down, the town is making positive steps.

He said: “We can’t take our eye off the ball, we do need to keep getting the message out there and encourage people to not let their guard down.

“But I was pleased to see that our seven day rate had fallen below that of the week following we went into formal restrictions at the start of October.

“Often there is a lot of doom and gloom and we say numbers are still high, and admittedly numbers are still high, however I think it is important to recognise when things are going in the right direction and people’s efforts are having the desired effect, that we recognise that as well.”

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