Coronavirus York updates; 17th November 2020

Deaths and test results

TWO additional deaths have been announced by the York Hospital Trust today. They both occurred on Sunday. The cumulative second wave fatality total has now reached 47 at the York and Scarborough hospitals.

FIFTY TWO (52) additional positive test results announced today.

Case numbers are now slowly reducing.

There have been no major adverse changes in any neighbourhood although four remain above national average case rate levels.

Other statistics are not yet available

More on the revised figures announced yesterday

It now seems clear that the major retrospective increase in the number of cases in the City was linked to positive test results at York University.

The case distribution map (below) is now showing 372 cases there during the week ending 14th October. That is pretty much off the scale by way of comparison with other neighbourhoods.

It appears that many students had not registered in York with a GP and that their test result had initially been allocated to their home towns.

Government case distribution map mid October

The way that cases are allocated geographically has made little difference to figures recorded during the last few days.

Outbreak management meeting tomorrow

The Councils Coronavirus outbreak management board is meeting tomorrow. No papers for the meeting have been published yet but is likely to be a significant one against a background of case numbers beginning to creep up again in some York neighbourhoods.

Residents will expect to see a clear path forward covering the remainder of the lockdown period, the return to the tiered approach on 3rd December and plans for the Christmas period.

The York University is likely to come under scrutiny with pressures to temporarily close the campus mounting. The pressure is event greater now that new figures have revealed the sheer size of the epidemic at Heslington which occurred in October.

Residents will hope to learn more about the most vulnerable locations for COVID contact. This information should be available now from the local authorities “test and trace” system.

Finally, many will hope to see more information from the managers of local hospitals. Performance information should be provided with a separate analysis for the York and Scarborough sites.

Coronavirus York updates; 20th August 2020

Deaths and test results

There has been a spike in the number of positive test results recorded in the City. The government has updated the figures issued on Sunday 16th August revealing that 6 positive results were recorded on that day. That brings the cumulative total to 946.

That is the largest single day number of new cases recorded since the middle of June.

According to the government web site the cases were located in the Woodthorpe/Foxwood area

Extract from government web site https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/cases?areaType=ltla&areaName=York

There have been no additional hospital deaths.

York trends

The Council, in its now regular email to residents about the health crisis, makes no reference to the figures and offers no explanation for the blip. (Instead the email refers to house sales at Lowfields and the proposal for a new forest neither of which are directly linked to the health crisis).

The Councils daily COVID tracker – which can be found by clicking here on “Open Data – also makes no reference to the new figures.

The Council continues to ignore requests for additional information to be published.

Key at the moment are the number of tests being carried out on York residents each day. This would tell us whether there is an increase in the percentage proving to be positive.

Also important, in view of the spike, are the results of “track and trace” processes. These might help residents understand whether the positive results related to a particular family or group of workers.