Council issue coronavirus bulletin with localised information for the county borough
A third detailed briefing on the pandemic situation locally has been published by the local authority.
The below update was published yesterday part of the new twice weekly update system, and echos recent updates with community transmission in households thought to be the driver of the high local covid figures.
The full update from yesterday afternoon is copied below, with all bolding and underlining of points is copied from Wrexham Council’s email, and we intend to do similar for future updates:
Dear Councillors,
COMMUNICATIONS
This note is sent directly to Members, community councils and the media, but Members and Community Councillors play a vital role in helping share key information and messages with their communities. For today, the key message remains that everyone should exercise extreme vigilance for several months until the vaccination programme takes effect and to follow the advice here: Welsh Government website, and the Welsh Government and Wrexham Council Twitter accounts. Essentially, assume that you and anyone you come into contact with has the virus and act accordingly. On Fridays, we will share user-friendly communication assets that will help you more readily share information on social media.
DATA ON THE VIRUS
Please find attached:
Table 1 – the summary of the weekly data for Wrexham as a whole compared to other councils in North Wales.
Table 2 – the summary of daily data for the 18 Public Health Wales ‘MSOA’ statistical sub-areas of Wrexham
NB – the data for week ending 3rd January are largely finalised. Those for week ending 10th January are still very tentative, so it would have been misleading to include them today .
The County Borough as a Whole (Table 1)
Wrexham remains worst in Wales for our rate per 100,00 population (851.7 today) and 2nd for positivity (29.3% today), but the situation is slightly better than reported on Friday. We can only hope that this short trend continues.
The Sub-Areas (Table 2)
Almost all of the 18 ‘MSOA’ sub-areas of Wrexham (chosen by PHW) have improved a little since my last report to you 3 days ago (8th January), though some have got worse and the figures remain very high.
- 3 have recorded their worst figures since 20th October (shown in bold on the table), compared to 9 on 8th January.
- 15 have greater than 550/100k, compared to 16 on the 8th.
- 8 have greater than 800/100k, compared to 11 on the 8th.
- 14 are in the worst decile in Wales, compared to 11 on the 4th. However, the threshold for the 1st decile is much lower (648/100k) than last week (750/100k). Those with more than 700 are set out below:
o Gwersyllt West & Summerhill has 1924/100k – up from 1722 on the 8th
o Hermitage & Whitegate has 1268 – down from 1417 on the 8th
o New Broughton & Bryn Cefn has 1134 – up from 1108 on the 8th
o Llay South & Gwersyllt East has 1022 – down from 1034 on the 8th
o Coedpoeth & Brymbo has 1008 – down from 1074 on the 8th
o Wrexham West has 948 – down from 960 on the 8th
o Caia Park has 896 – up from 840 on the 8th
o Ruabon & Marchwiel has 860 – down from 936 on the 8th
o Town North, University & Rhos-ddu has 799 – down from 901
o Borras & Rhosnensi has 764 – down from 868 on the 8th
o Johnstown North & Rhostyllen has 734 – down from 1223 on the 8th
o Acton & Maes-y-dre has 732 – down from 791 on the 8th
- 0 have less than 300/100k, compared to 0 on 8th December. In fact, the lowest is 466/100k
Settings
The virus is very widespread with the principal locations remaining households followed, some way below, by outbreaks in care/nursing homes (including, sadly a number of hospitalisations and deaths), the Maelor Hospital and the prison.
MANAGING THE VIRUS
General
The Level 4 Alert lockdown, which came into force on 20th December has been extended until the end of January and should soon begin to have an effect, as the October ‘firebreak’ did, although the predominance of the ‘UK’ variant and the easing of the restrictions over Christmas have clearly acted against this for the last few weeks.
Schools
Schools continue to provide education to pupils via remote learning. On-site provision continues for those children who are vulnerable and for the children of key workers. Unless there is a significant reduction in cases of Covid-19 before 29 January these arrangements will continue until the February half term (week beginning 15th February).
Other Council Services
The Council is continuing to provide critical services as publicised on our website.
Vaccination
Care Home Vaccinations
Over the weekend and into this week care homes that have no positive cases amongst staff and residents are being vaccinated. As per the update on Friday, the Health Board are expecting guidance on how vaccines can be rolled out to care homes that have had an active outbreak and how this can be achieved in the quickest possible timescales. The position with staff in care homes remains that they will, in the main, receive vaccinations through the Mass Vaccination Centres, but any spare vaccinations taken to care home will be offered to staff who have not yet received their vaccinations
Other Staff
As a Local Authority we have now received a request to provide the names of relevant frontline social care staff and we are now collating those names and details so that they can be shared with the health board to enable those staff to have appointments as soon as possible
Community Vaccination
Welsh Government has today published a Vaccination Plan aiming to vaccinate:
- all care home residents and staff, health and social care staff, people over 70 and people with underlying health conditions by mid-February
- people over 50 by the spring
- all other adults by the autumn.
More information can be obtained via the following link: https://phw.nhs.wales/topics/immunisation-and-vaccines/covid-19-vaccination-information/about-the-vaccine
Regards
Chief Officer Planning and Regulatory
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