‘We are at a pivotal point’ says Calderdale Public Health chief as Covid infection rate slows

Calderdale’s Director of Public Health, Debs Harkins, told members of Calderdale Council’s Adults, Health and Social Care Scrutiny Board that over the past few weeks Calderdale had begun to see what seemed like a slowing of the COVID-19 growth rate.

But she warned: “We need to prepare ourselves for a very rapidly deteriorating situation but also congratulate ourselves if we manage to stabilise the rate and contain it – we are at a pivotal point now.”

Coun Mike Barnes (Lab, Skircoat) said it was good to see Calderdale was below the national trend but cautioned that in the early days of the pandemic last year Calderdale was substantially lower than the national rate and then unfortunately caught up quite rapidly.

“How confident are we that we are not following the same trend?” he said.

Ms Harkins said: “This is what is keeping me awake at night – back then we were about a month behind but we didn’t have the data at that point.

“It feels very much like that situation. What is different now is that more than half of people over 80 have been vaccinated so we are rolling out some protection, and we have learned a lot.

“But I do think that what could happen is we contain this by national lockdown – or similar to what happened in the spring because we were a few weeks behind.

“We need to plan for both scenarios,” she said.

Coun Steven Leigh (Con, Ryburn) said pattern of outbreaks in different parts of Calderdale were “almost strange” with hot spots “moving around” from one area to another.

“It has happened in all the wards for no obvious reason, and there are still strange spikes going on,” he said.

Ms Harkins said over the course of the pandemic Calderdale had seen enormous variations.

“Sometimes it might be because there has been an outbreak at a school or care home, or there has been a group of people that have been affected, for example grass roots sports which were allowed earlier – sometimes it is by chance within relatively small areas.

“Some areas are higher we know because it is associated with denser population, large households and a large number of key workers, for example in food manufacturing, food provision, care and transport, that can’t work from home,” she said.

Coun Colin Hutchinson (Lab, Skircoat) wondered if local supermarkets could be challenged to tighten operations.

Ms Harkins said the council was among those lobbying the Government over this issue as well as talking to them directly.

“It is one of the few places we can go, so it is important to be strict – we need them to go back to spring with queuing and only one family member shopping,” she said.