Agenda item

Philip Cunnington asked the Executive Member for Health, Wellbeing and Adult Services the following question:

 

Question

Can you tell me the latest situation with Covid-19 within Wokingham?

Minutes:

 

Can you tell me the latest situation with Covid-19 within Wokingham?

 

Answer

The latest situation is that there was an increase in cases last week, with 266 cases recorded over the week up to 12th November 2020. This gives a weekly rate of 155.4 per 100,000.  I should add that Wokingham remains below both the England rate and the South East weekly rate. Our biggest rise in cases was previously amongst the 18 to 30 age group but we now have rising cases in all age groups.

 

On the 19th November there were 1789 confirmed cases of Covid-19 among Wokingham residents since the beginning of the pandemic.  This is a rate of 1045 per 100,000 people considering all cases to date. We remain well below the England average.

 

In response to this the Council has stood up its full emergency response procedures, led by the Chief Executive. These include:

 

·           Covid Marshalls out and about in the Borough working alongside our Public Protection teams;

·           A network of Covid Champions around the Borough;

·           A successful local case tracing service which compliments the national service;

·           We have written to and called all of the vulnerable people in the Borough to check the have all they need;

·           We have dedicated Care Home and Education task forces;

·           We have a Data Team led by our Public Health Consultant to continually monitor the current situation;

·           We continue to work with the voluntary sector, as before, through the ‘One Front Door’.

 

I would like to personally thank all the officers from across the Council, the voluntary sector and the community at large for their efforts here to protect us from this virus. We are in this together and to keep infection rates down it is vital that we keep to the rules and minimise social contact. Remember that support is available from WBC and partners via the One Front Door and, where possible, WBC services are still open for business.

 

Supplementary Question

We are all aware that there was an outbreak of Covid-19 at a care home in Shinfield. Please can you update me and let me know what is happening there?

 

Supplementary Answer

A very significant outbreak occurred in Shinfield. The situation today is that the number of staff who tested positive during the outbreak was 49. The total number of residents who tested positive was 45. So this is the largest local outbreak so far. Sadly, five residents died. I would like to take this opportunity to pass on my condolences to the families involved. Two residents remain poorly and, again, I would like to take the opportunity to pass on my best wishes. At the moment, obviously, this has caused us significant issues in terms of management because, not only do you have the healthcare issues to respond to, but a situation where 49 staff tested positive and had to go home to isolate. This put tremendous pressure on staffing over a crucial period. I should make it clear that, while from the outside one may assume that this level of cases indicates that something had gone seriously wrong in the home, at the moment we can find no evidence that this is the case. The reports I have seen have been very complimentary about the home manager and the dedication of the staff, many of whom actually lived in the home during the critical period to support the residents. So I wanted to thank them for that.

 

The Care Homes Taskforce, Public Health England and the CCG have all been involved fully and an investigation is now going on into the possible causes. I am pleased to say that we are over the worst of this from a managerial situation and I wanted to thank all the people who have worked so hard to move this forwards. I also want to take the opportunity to thank Councillor Frewin who contacted me within an hour of finding out about this and offered his assistance and was a great help in pointing out local parts of the community where extra reassurance, extra signage and visits from Covid Marshals could take place to ensure that Covid procedures were being followed.