Agenda item

A verbal update will be given at the meeting on the current situation regarding the Covid-19 pandemic.  The Committee is recommended to receive the update and comment as wished.

The City Mayor stated that he had been very impressed with how people in the city and officers from the Council had responded to the local lockdown that had been imposed on Leicester in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic.  A review of the local arrangements was due on Thursday 30 July, but no firm indication had been received to date on what the outcome of this was likely to be.  However, available data suggested that the rate of transmission had been reducing for a number of weeks and that Leicester was no longer one of the worst-affected areas in the United Kingdom.

The Director of Public Health then gave a presentation reviewing the Covid-19 data in Leicester.  A copy of this presentation is attached at the end of these minutes for information.

The Director advised that:

·           At the start of the local lockdown approximately 130 – 140 cases of Coid-19 were being reported in Leicester per day.  This was now reducing and, as at 22 July, was reported to be approximately 66 cases per thousand population;

·           Volunteers were going door-to-door to help identify cases;

·           Nationally, 1.1% of tests for Covid-19 currently were positive, but in Leicester 2.2% were positive.  However, the number was decreasing;

·           Pillar 1 tests were done in hospitals.  There had been a very strong peak in positive Pillar 1 cases in April, but the number had then reduced in line with the national figure;

·           Pillar 2 data was that from the community.  Initially, tests were not done in the community nationally, so meaningful data on these figures was only available from the end of June;

·           Pillar 1 tests had a focus on older age groups, but an increasing number of cases in Leicester were not related to older people, with 30 – 39 being the age band with the largest number of cases;

·           Opportunities had been created to enable people to get tested for Covid-19 in all areas of the city.  People who tested positive therefore were able to isolate and stop transmission;

·           People had tested positive across the city, but clusters were identified in north-east area.  These Super Output Areas were very small – sometimes just a few households – but could have a significant impact;

·           In Leicester, transmission of Covid-19 was predominantly in the community, not transferring in to hospitals and care homes;

·           Work was constantly underway to identify ways of breaking chains of transmission; and

·           The rate of excess deaths in the city had slowed in June and levels were now more normal for the time of year, but Covid-19 was still circulating.

The City Mayor thanked all involved for the work they had done in sharing public health messages in community languages, stressing the importance of providing information in languages that were most likely to be understood.  The Committee also welcomed this work, noting that the use of different languages had been positively received and had had a significant impact in ensuring that pubic health messages were widely received.

The Committee welcomed the reduction in the number of cases of Covid-19 and thanked everyone working on the testing programme.  The City Mayor also welcomed this reduction, but stressed the need to remain cautious about the figures.  The way in which tests were taken had changed over time, from just people with symptoms, which gave a high level of positive tests, to a much wider range of testing, so a lower proportion tests were positive.  Caution therefore also was needed when comparing the number of positive tests in Leicester with numbers in other parts of the country.

Members asked if any indication had been received of when the local lockdown in Leicester would be eased.  In reply, the City Mayor advised that a particular “trigger point” had not been set for this, so it was not known what measure(s) would be used to assess whether the local lockdown should be eased, but the continuing reduction in the number of Covid-19 cases in the city was encouraging.  The information provided to the Secretary of State to assist in his review of the local lockdown on 30 July was reflected in the presentation made by the Director of Public Health.

The mass testing being undertaken in the city was welcomed by the Committee, but it questioned why some areas with lower levels of deaths appeared to have had higher levels of testing than areas with higher levels of deaths.  The Director of Public Health explained that there were a number of different ways in which testing was done, including mass testing units at different sites, door-to-door testing and leaving kits with households for collection later, which could result in different levels of tests being completed in different areas.

In reply to comments from the Committee, the City Mayor advised that he believed the national lockdown in response to the Covid-19 virus should have happened earlier and that local data should have been provided by national agencies earlier than it was.  Local data still was not complete and was not being supplied in a meaningful form, which made it difficult to target areas where the rate of transmission was higher and prevent the whole city being in local lockdown.

The Director of Public Health explained that initially regional testing units were established by the government.  Later, mobile testing units were sent to the city, with the locations of these dependent on each unit being on at least one acre of land.  Over time, the Council was able to take more control of testing and develop ways in which to usefully map data.  From this, it had been identified that household spread of the virus was a key concern, so testing and containment strategies were now based on households.  The Director noted that data from Public Health England had a five day lag, although other bodies used live data.

Some concern as expressed that there appeared to be a significant number of cases in Leicester West, but it was noted that a high number of elderly people lived in that area, which could have contributed to the number of cases there.  The Director of Public Health advised that testing over the next couple of days would be taking place in the Bede Park and Mowmacre areas, with door-to-door testing being done in Beaumont Leys.  Although case numbers overall were reducing, there was still more work to do to bring the numbers down further, with the main focus now being Super Output Areas.

In response to concerns about whether the requirement to wear face masks was being adhered to, the Director of Public Health advised that reports showed that there was a higher level of adherence to the rules in Leicester than in other parts of the country.

The Director of Finance advised Members that letters sent to people who were shielding currently were sent at the direction of the Chief Medical Officer, not by the Council.  However, the national shielding service would end in July and this Council would be the first to take over the shielding role.  When this happened, everyone in the city and county who was shielding would be contacted to make sure their support needs were being met.

AGREED:

1)    That the current situation regarding the Covid-19 pandemic be noted; and

2)    That the thanks of this Committee be extended to everyone involved for all the work they have done, and continue to do, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.