Following the Prime Minister’s announcement this week, City of York Council has been working with the Department for Education and with schools and early years settings across York to set out the plan for our children’s education across the coming months.
As you will know, many schools and settings are impacted by reduced staff levels as individuals follow government advice to self-isolate, to help slow the spread of COVID-19. In response to this, schools and settings must remain open whilst managing lower numbers of staff.
Schools, colleges, nurseries, childminders and other registered childcare settings will remain open for children of key workers and vulnerable children where they can.
It is important to note that all childcare and educational settings remain safe places for children. So the fewer children making the journey to school, and the fewer children in educational settings, the lower the risk that the virus can spread and infect vulnerable individuals in wider society.
Details of Sainsburies assisted shopping schemes can be found viathis link
Volunteer and Help Scheme
City of York Council are working with the many kind-hearted volunteers and with the established voluntary sector to recruit, train and deploy volunteers to support the most vulnerable in the city who do not have access to any help.
Residents who would like help and volunteer are being asked to sign up to volunteering@york.gov.uk or call 01904 551550, or go to www.york.gov.uk/COVIDVolunteering. The Council will ask for details of their skills and capacity, match them to an existing voluntary group or train them, coordinating with city groups and council requirements, managing them to deliver support where it is needed.
Those vulnerable residents who do not currently have any access to support, but who need help because of impact of COVID-19, are asked to email our Community Support Coordinators at covid19help@york.gov.uk or call 01904 551550 for assistance.
As the health and safety of our residents is our priority, this structured and safe approach to volunteering is to ensure people get the support they need in a co-ordinated and safe way.
UPDATE: We have been overwhelmed by the amazing response to this post. We currently have filled all vacancies however have a waiting list running in the background should any other opportunities open up
Local ward funding is to be accelerated and used flexibly to help community organisations respond to local needs during the outbreak of coronavirus.
This source of funding is ideal for supporting local charities, community groups and other agencies delivering the support to residents in need.
Ward Councillors are being encouraged to work with their communities to identify needs and solutions and use their ward budgets accordingly. The Council will be as flexible and as responsive as we can in approving expenditure, so long as it complies with the council’s financial regulations.
The Council will be able to process applications very quickly to ensure that funding can be with the relevant community organisation immediately for use to support local residents.
Cllr Darryl Smalley, Executive Member for Culture, Leisure and Communities at City of York Council, said:
City of York Council is doing everything possible respond to the current situation, and the latest part of this is ensuring that every penny possible goes to those on the frontline in the coming weeks.
“Ward Councillors have been urged to consider how the ward budgets, particularly the Safer Communities Fund, can be deployed in a way that supports their communities through Coronavirus.
Ward committee funding will be as flexible as possible and any funds granted for date-specific activities will be extended until it is safe for them to be held.”
The scams take several forms which
include (so far):
·
Messages claiming to be
from HMRC offering a tax refund due to changes in the law around Covid-19,
recipients have to click a link which takes them to a fraudulent website
·
Messages claiming to be
from the Center for Disease Control or from the World Health Organisation.
These messages offer the recipient the chance to view a list of confirmed cases
within their local area by clicking on a link and making a Bitcoin payment.
·
Emails claiming to be
from a virologist sending an attached document with instructions on how to
avoid the Coronavirus. The attachment is malicious.
·
Fraudulent online sales
of masks and hand sanitiser which never materialise. If an online shopping
offer looks too good to be true, then it probably is.
Please do not click on links or open
attachments and take time to check that the email is from a legitimate source.
Please be aware that fraudsters go to great lengths to make their
communications with you look genuine.
As Covid-19 continues to spread,
fraudsters are likely to continue using the anxiety it generates to trick
people out of their personal data and hard -earned money. You can find more
information about the scams listed above online. The BBC have summarised these
scams in this article https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51838468
More than ever, as a community you
need to be aware of those in your locality who are elderly, live alone and who
are vulnerable. Please look after and support each other
The following changes will be introduced from this Sunday 22 March
PARK & RIDE
Park & Ride services will run every 15 minutes instead of the current 10 minute intervals. Services will start and finish at normal times We will be producing a specially-printed timetable which will be posted at P&R stations and stops for customers.
CITY & UNIVERSITY SERVICES
Sundays: Will operate a normal Sunday service until 2000, after which evening services on 1, 4, 6, 66 will operate at hourly intervals.
Monday – Friday: Will operate a Saturday Service with additional early morning journeys Monday to Friday, evening services on 1, 4, 6, 66 will operate at hourly intervals after 2000.
Saturday: Will operate a normal Saturday service until 2000, after which evening services on 1, 4, 6, 66 will operate at hourly intervals.
We are advising customers to check for updates on the First York Twitter feed and the company’s website https://www.firstgroup.com/yorkwhich also has customer information about Coronavirus. Detailed times will be published shortly.
Support for vulnerable people
To help meet residents’ needs, particularly those most at risk or isolated from communities, the Council has created a help line and support.
Those vulnerable residents who do not currently have any access to support, but who need help because of impact of COVID-19, are asked to email our Community Support Coordinators at covid19help@york.gov.uk or call 01904 551550 for assistance.
Volunteering
Thank you for sharing the messages regarding volunteering, we hope that you can continue to do so. We are asking that people register their support by emailing volunteering@york.gov.ukor calling 01904 551550.
We will ask for details of their skills and capacity, match them to an existing voluntary group or train them ourselves, coordinating with city groups and council requirements, manage them to deliver support where it is needed.
We have a free post address & will write letters to anyone who is isolated & doesn’t use the internet but still needs to be connected! Our Freepost address is: Healthwatch York, FREEPOST RTEG-BLES-RRYJ 15 Priory Street YO1 6ET
Fenwicks
We have therefore taken the very difficult decision to temporarily close all Fenwick stores to the public from 6pm on Thursday 19th March until further notice
Tesco
As from Thursday 19 March
1. Only 3 items per customer on every product line 2. All meat, fish, deli counters and salad bars closed 3. All stores close at 10pm 4. Monday, Wednesday & Friday 9am – 10am – elderly customers only except in Express stores 5. To free up slots for vulnerable people nd who normally shop on line or click and collect please consider shopping in store to free up slots 6. Will be encouraging card payment and introducing distancing measures at checkouts
It is understood that this case came about as a result of travel to northern Italy.
The individual “followed all necessary health advice and has been in self-isolation at home” and the authorities say “here is a very low risk of the virus having been transferred to anyone in York”.
The Council expects that more confirmed cases in York over the next weeks and months as the virus spreads across the country.
“The council and our partners have well established plans in place and are working closely together to ensure that we are best placed to respond to local issues as they arise”.
No details of which neighbourhood the victim lives in have been released.
In an unconnected development, the Council is today inviting residents to sign up for FREE suicide prevention training workshops in the City
People are being encouraged to sign up for free suicide prevention training workshops in York next month as part of the #TalkSuicide campaign from local NHS and council organisations.
The Humber, Coast and Vale Health and Care Partnership is hosting two workshops in York on Tuesday, 10th March 2020 at Mariott Room, York Library, Library Square, York YO1 7DS – and members of the public are invited to attend to learn life-saving skills.
These one-hour workshops, which will run between 9.30am-10.30am and 11am-12pm, are free to attend but it is essential to register beforehand. You can register at bit.ly/talksuicideyork.
There were 6,507 registered suicides in the UK in 2018 – which amounts to one death by suicide every 80 minutes. Yorkshire and Humber had some of the highest rates of suicide in England in 2018.
The suicide prevention workshops will be group training sessions, including interactive video-based training from the Zero Suicide Alliance and discussion with people who work in suicide prevention within our local community. Free refreshments will be available.
Completing the training at the workshop will help you to:
Identify the signs of when someone might be suffering from suicidal thoughts.
Feel comfortable speaking out about suicide in a supportive manner.
Signpost anyone suffering from suicidal thoughts to the correct services and support.
The workshops are part of the Partnership’s #TalkSuicide campaign, which aims to reduce the stigma around talking about suicide by raising awareness about suicide in our communities and encouraging our people to complete suicide prevention training.
Jo Kent, Suicide Prevention Lead for the Humber, Coast and Vale Health and Care Partnership, said: “Every death by suicide is a tragedy and in Humber, Coast and Vale we are working collaboratively with the NHS, councils, voluntary organisations and other groups to prevent suicides from happening in our communities.
“The suicide prevention training is integral to this work as those who complete the training can make a real difference in their communities, simply by being better placed to identify those people who might be suicidal, and knowing what to say to them and signposting them to the most appropriate services.
“We want to train as many people as possible in our communities so if you can spare an hour on the morning of Tuesday, 10th March please register for one of the free suicide prevention training workshops taking place in York – the skills you learn could help you save someone’s life in the future.”
Can’t attend either of the York workshops? Workshops are also being held in Scarborough, Beverley, Hull, Scunthorpe and Grimsby during March. Visit talksuicide.co.uk to find out when these workshops are taking place.
You can also complete the training on the talksuicide.co.uk website, where you can also find out more about the #TalkSuicide campaign.
Thelatest NHS figures for January reveal that there were just over 17,000 presentations at the York Hospital Accident and Emergency unit.
Although there is usually a peak in winter, this number is down on the 19,683 who presented during August last year. ,
One in four (24.8%) patents attending had to wait for over 4 hours to have their needs addressed. That is more than the national average of 18.3%.
We believe that the Councils Health Scrutiny Board should consider performance reports like these – covering the public services most likely to be used by residents – at their monthly meetings.
Update 1600 hrs 2nd Feb 2020: The Council has now shared a briefing with Councillors which they say can be shared with residents. We’ll leave the Councillors to dissemination the information as they judge necessary. The papers do confirm that the infected couple appear to have had few contacts in the City and none on the University campus. The bulletin still fails to say when the couple arrived in the City and which locations they visited.
Today’s developments
York University has said that the ill student, who has a confirmed case of the virus, was not on campus or in student accommodation either before or after they displayed symptoms (suggesting that they had recently arrived in the country, although this is not confirmed).
Apparently the Department of Health and Social Care, working with Public Health England, are quoting patient confidentiality as the reason why the movements of the affected victims have not been revealed.
Usually patients will waive their rights regarding the revelation of their movements.
It is perhaps easier to understand why the names of those concerned may be withheld, not least because it may deter others with similar symptoms from coming forward.
We understand that the Councils Public Health Director has now issued a confidential briefing to Councillors. Why it should be regarded as confidential is anyone’s guess.
At least one Councillor is understood to be asking searching questions about progress being made on finding recent arrivals from China who may be in York.
Questions are also being asked about the need to deploy hand sanitisers in public buildings in the City.
Its over a week since Independent Councillor Mark Warters emailed the City’s Public Health Director asking what was being done to counter the risks of the Novel Coronavirus virus which had emerged in Wuhan in China.
He (rightly) pointed out that there were close links between
our countries with many tourists and University students now visiting from
China. At that time 2000 people had flown to the UK from Wuhan.
There had been no confirmed cases in the UK although the
Chief Medical Officer had said that there was a “fair chance” that some would arise.
The Director of Public Health (Sharon Stolitz) replied on 22nd January. She said that the risk to residents in York is “extremely low”. “So on this occasion, my professional judgement is that it is not appropriate to do any public press or media briefings on coronavirus”
On Monday 27th January the Director agreed to liaise with
local Universities.
On Tuesday 28th she wrote to Mark Warters saying “The risk to residents in York is low and the presence of Chinese students in the City does not change this. It would be wrong to suggest that it does”. “There is no further action required in York at this point of time”.
On Wednesday 29th January more concerns were expressed about
lack of publicity.
One commentator suggested that, as a minimum, the Council should remind people about the need to sustain basic hygiene standards like hand washing. It was pointed out that, even in major Council buildings, there were no hand sanitisers deployed (pretty much standard on every cruise ship these days, albeit mainly as a response to Norovirus).
It emerged later that the University wrote to students giving
advice on basic hygiene and the options available if they were feeling
unwell.
Later on Wednesday, two suspected cases on Coronoviruis were identified at York ‘s Staycity aparthotel, which is located near the Barbican.
The media reported the case the next day. There was no
public comment from the Council.
On Friday (31st) the media camped outside the Staycity aparthotel.
At 14:43 the Councils complaints department – challenged about a lack of communication on the issue – said “Please access the official information on the coronavirus outbreak on the link below.which is updated daily and is available to all. This information is being shared nationally with all media outlets. City of York Council is not currently providing any media comment in addition to this”. Q&A blog
A few minutes later media reports made it clear that a couple who had been staying in York were being treated at a specialist unit in Newcastle for Coronavirus symptoms.
At 5:25pm, the Council Leader issued a statement. The City’s
MP (Rachel Maskell) issued a similar communication.
The statements did have the ring of L/Cpl Jones about them.
The Staycity management also commented that the room that the
ill couple had stayed at had been quarantined. It would be thoroughly cleaned
and sanitised. The hotel remains open for business.
In the evening some Council members took to social media to offer advice. Some was good (regular hand washing, don’t go to your GP if you get the symptoms) but there remained some gaping holes in the information available.
As the virus can be transmitted person to person, just when
had the couple concerned arrived in the Country?
What had been their movements?
Although death rates are still relatively low (2% fatalities) that is a big enough threat for some intensive work and communications to be necessary over the next few hours.
It was confirmed at lunchtime today (Saturday) that one of the ill people is a student at the University of York
Local ward funding is to be accelerated and used flexibly to help community organisations respond to local needs during the outbreak of coronavirus. 
