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‘Third lockdown working more slowly than the first two’, Bristol’s public health boss says
The third lockdown is working, but more slowly than the first two, Bristol’s public health boss has said.
Christina Gray broke the news to city health leaders on Wednesday, January 27, saying coronavirus infection rates in Bristol were still “incredibly high” but “going in the right direction”.
“What we’ve got to do is keep driving down those rates,” she said. “That will protect our hospitals. That will enable us to get the vaccine out.
is needed now More than ever
“And hopefully in two or three months, we’ll be in a place where we can begin to look at the world a little bit differently.”
Bristol’s rate of Covid-19 infections is 340 per 100,000 people, down from around 500 per 100,000 at the peak of the third wave, Gray told members of the city’s health and wellbeing board.
She praised the people of Bristol for continuing to come forward for testing, and particularly the people of South Bristol, who she said had “stepped up to the plate”.
“South Bristol people…have come forward to get tests even though we know that many people in those communities will be financially challenged,” she said. “They’re in self-employed businesses or insecure employment where it’s not easy for them to isolate.”
Self-isolating after a positive test is one of the most important ways to stop the spread of the virus, so there is financial, food and welfare support for those who need it, she said.
Gray said a “huge” number of tests was carried out in the community this week: 13,000 as compared with 15,000 at peak. A “very high” rate of those had come back positive: ten per cent compared with under one per cent in summer.
13,000 tests have been carried out in the last week. Photo: Martin Booth
She said that it was a relief the lockdown was working as there had been some concern that it would not prove effective against the new, more infectious variant of the virus.
“We are just beginning to level out and come down from what is being referred to as the third wave,” she said. “That wave was the highest of all three and probably the most lethal.
“We are alongside the rest of the country beginning to see an impact on our rates but more slowly than we did in the first and the second wave.
“The fact that the virus is being contained and the infection rate is coming down is entirely related to the interventions of the lockdown. It does not mean the virus has gone away. It simply means that that intervention is effective.
“So the good news is that the lockdown measure is proving effective, it is driving down our rates of transmission, albeit slower than previously.”
Amanda Cameron is a local democracy reporter for Bristol.
Main photo: Martin Booth
Read more: ‘We need to go back to two metres plus’ says Bristol’s health boss
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