Update from York Council on Corona virus

The Authority has now issued the following advice to Councillors;

“We continue to closely monitor the latest national advice and are in regular contact with Public Health England.

Of course, our priority is the health and wellbeing of staff, residents and visitors to our offices.

As usual, our incredible cleaning teams thoroughly clean council offices every night with disinfectant which kills germs and is effective against viruses. As ever, this will continue in line with best practice and public health advice.

Before you use your desk space and, as an extra precaution, please wipe your desk, keyboard and phone using the antibacterial wipes provided. Please also use the gel provided and ensure it and the wipes remain in place for colleagues to use.

We are continuing to share the national advice with council staff, partners, care homes, social care settings as well as schools, colleges and universities.

The health advice from the Government remains the same as yesterday:

  • you feel you cannot cope with your symptoms at home
  • your condition gets worse
  • your symptoms do not get better after 7 days

Only call 111 if you cannot get help online. Don’t go to your GP or A&E.

Advice on staying at home is available at www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/self-isolation-advice/

We will continue to keep you updated as much as we can, and ask that you keep looking at and signpost people to www.nhs.uk/coronavirus for the latest health information and advice.

There has been updated travel advice on school trips. Government guidance advises against all overseas trips for children under 18. It does not advise against domestic trips at this stage. We are in close and regular contact with all schools.

Foreign office travel advice for the general public is available at www.gov.uk/guidance/foreign-travel-checklist. Advice on specific countries is available at www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice. 

It is inevitable that someone you know will follow the latest health advice and self-isolate. We ask that everyone respects their privacy and protects their identity. They are doing the right and responsible thing by following government advice, and it is important we all support them as much as we can”.

The Council have also now produced a more comprehensive briefing which can be downloaded from this link

This is a link to a US advice list https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/home/get-your-household-ready-for-COVID-19.html

Coronavirus Update

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.

Wuhan Novel Coronavirus and York

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.

Both had apparently been briefed by Health Department officials. Some information was made available via a web link https://publichealthmatters.blog.gov.uk/2020/01/23/wuhan-novel-coronavirus-what-you-need-to-know/.

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