The risk that a part or all of North Yorkshire may have to enter tier 2 COVID restrictions by the end of the week is very real according to the county's Director of Health & Adult services.
The county remains in tier 1 restrictions at the moment but with York and areas in West and South Yorkshire already in tier 2 there is concern among those managing the county's response to the crisis that it may juts be a matter of time before all or parts of North Yorkshire find themselves in tier 2.
Chief Executive of the County Council, Richard Flinton, says
"Unfortunately, the infection rates for Covid-19 across the county continue to rise. An inevitable and sad consequence of that is that we are seeing growing positive tests among the frailest residents in North Yorkshire, those living in the county’s care settings.
Despite robust outbreak management plans, we now have more than 55 care homes out of a total of 233 with single cases or outbreaks, and three of those now have a very difficult situation with wider scale infection. This is a serious matter, as you will understand.
Alongside this we have transmissions continuing to rise across the county, and I am afraid to say much of this spread lies outside of our direct control, because it is taking place within people’s homes and social settings. We are also surrounded by counties and regions in higher levels of restrictions than we are. Together all of these issues mean we are literally remaining in tier one – the lowest level of intervention – by a thread.
If we are to have any chance at all of staying in this tier, and to give us all the best chance of being able to be with our loved ones at Christmas, we need to step up and stand together as a county and we will explain this in more detail over the coming days. In my role as Chair of North Yorkshire’s Local Resilience Forum.
I am regularly asked when all this will end. The answer is unfortunately not as straightforward as the question. In truth, we will need to adapt the way we live for many more months. There is much talk of vaccines, let’s hope that one becomes widely available, and that it is effective. There is certainly cause for hope and the treatments for people who end up in hospital havealso improved, which is positive. Testing and lab capacity are also improving and we are extremely successful in North Yorkshire at securing new options for testing across communities."
Richard Webb is the county's Director of Health & Adult services. He says everyone needs to make sure they are following the current guidelines if tier 2 is to be avoided.
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The latest 7-Day infection rates show that Selby and Harrogate have the highest infection rates in the county but that the rates are also increasing in Scarborough, Ryedale, Hambleton and Harrogate.
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