Deaths

SIX additional hospital deaths have been announced today.

They bring the cumulative total number of fatalities at the York and Scarborough hospitals up to 283 since the start of the second wave of infections.

Test Results

FORTY SEVEN (47) additional positive test results announced today. Brings the cumulative case total to 11,136.

Rate /100k population has now reduced to 205.12. Trending to fall below the 200 case benchmark tomorrow.

The case rate in York continues to reduce more quickly than is being seen in other parts of the country

Neighbourhoods

There are now three neighbourhoods with a case rate of below 100. They are Dunnington/Elvington/Wheldrake (6 cases), the City Centre (12 cases) and Poppleton/Rufforth/Askhams (5 cases).

Haxby remains the only area with a rate over 400 (400.4 with 23 cases).

Vaccinations

National

Nationwide 9,296,367 people have now received their first vaccinations. 494,209 have also received the second dose.

319,038 people were vaccinated yesterday 31st January (first dose) . This was lower than the rate achieved during the previous three days.

3156 people received the second dose.

Regional

Local

According to a post by Nimbuscare on social media

“Over 12,000 patients received their Covid vaccinations at the York’s National and Local Vaccination Centre between the 25th and 31st January.

In the over 80s group Humber, Coast and Vale (which includes the York area) had vaccinated 68% by 17th January and 87% by the 24th January.”

Testing

Number of tests

5,431 PCR (laboratory) tests were conducted in York during the week ending 27th January (the latest figure available).

Of these, 9% provided to be positive .

That is the lowest positivity rate found since 24th December 2020.

In addition, 1526 lateral flow tests were completed on 31st January. That brings the total number of such tests to 35,270.

Sites

A TEMPORARY Covid testing site will be set up next week in Haxby which has seen high infection rates in recent times.

The testing will be held by appointment only at the Ethel Ward Playing Fields in Calf Close, Haxby, from Monday until Sunday February 6, from 9am to 3pm.

Tests can be booked by going to www.nhs.uk/Coronavirus or by phoning 119 and selecting the option that you were asked to attend by your local council.

The facility is similar to the one operating on the Thanet Road rugby club car park tomorrow.

It also was set up when virus infection rates in Woodthorpe and Westfield were very high.

York Council staff absence

A York Council committee will be considering the levels of sick absence at the authority. next week.

A report says,

“At the start of the pandemic staff absence increased significantly with a
number of staff not available to work. This was directly linked to coronavirus where staff were displaying symptoms and self isolating and
unable to work from home. The sickness absence rates across the council follows the national and local infection rate patterns, as can be seen, with a slight peak in wave 2 October time and then wave three being end of December into January 2021.

There is some confidence though that whilst rates have increased since
end of December, they are not near the level we experienced in March /
April. There are staff that are self isolating but are able to work fully from home and therefore those will not appear in the figures, also those staff who have tested positive for covid but are well enough to continue to work from home”.

Around 900 staff working in the social care sector are being vaccinated.

Schools

The same meeting will hear that there are pressures on some schools. All York schools are still open catering for the children of some critical workers.

The meeting will be told that the number of teaching staff absent since January 5th has fluctuated but has been between 95- 85, with the numbers absent due to being Covid positive being under 10 individual cases on any given date.

“The staffing levels in individual schools have not so far reached a
level where schools have been unable to deliver on site provision or
their remote learning offer”.

The impact on schools varies according to their size, staffing structure
and the physical space within their buildings.

In particular, small primary schools are finding it more difficult to manage high numbers of children on site and to manage the remote learning offer.

During the first week in January, a small number of parents contacted the Council’s education team to highlight problems with accessing school places, each case was worked through and solutions found.

The meeting takes place next Monday