Hospital overload warning as Hull braced for more
Coronavirus cases HULL HAS WORST INFECTION RATE IN COUNTRY, WHICH IS PROVING A WORRY FOR HEALTH BOSSES
HULL and the East Riding’s hospitals are just 14 days away from caring for 400 coronavirus patients at once.
That is the concerning projection made by the city’s director of public health speaking on the day y when Hull had one of the UK’S worst t Covid-19 infection rate.
A huge 73 per cent rise in hospital l admissions in the past seven days s has been confirmed.
727 people in every 100,000 are e now believed to have the deadly y virus meaning an increase is expected in the number of Covid-positive people becoming seriously ill.
More people are being treated between Hull Royal Infirmary and Castle Hill Hospital than during the peak of the first wave, putting the scale of the city’s “public health crisis” into perspective.
“We’ve now got more people in the hospital than we did at the tip of the peak. 150 was the number reported earlier this week of people in the hospital with Covid.
“We’re expecting that to be as high as 400 in the next couple of weeks.
“I can’t stress how serious this is. It really is a public health crisis. We know we are in the middle of the pandemic but for us in Hull it has become more serious,” Julia Weldon, the city’s director of public health, told the BBC.
“I can’t stress enough how serious this all is. Today’s figure that will be announced this afternoon is 727 per 100,000.
“We will be the highest in the country by the end of today. North East Lincs is the fourth highest. We’ve had 245 cases since yesterday and that is infection across the city across age groups.
“Really worryingly, that is a significant increase in our over-60s.
“It is a really worrying picture with high stress on the hospital. It was a 73 per cent rise in the number of Covid patients in just a week.
“They can cope with it but it does mean they’ll have to consider delaying electives which we were trying really hard not to do.”
Julia Weldon was speaking alongside the leader of Hull City Council, Councillor Stephen Brady, who admitted he “would’ve been more than happy” if Hull had been put straight into tier three when it was actually placed in the second tier.
He explained how the infection rates in Hull pointed at the situation the city is now in, but that it is the Government that decided which areas progress into the different tiers.
Cllr Brady also acknowledged that the city would be in tier three from the end of the lockdown on December 2 - unless major progress is made.
“We would’ve been more than happy if we’d moved straight from tier one into three but it isn’t us who decides that. It’s the Government who decide that.
“While it is a lockdown, it is not a lockdown in the sense that happened in March so maybe there is not the same urgency of the situation.
“If on December 2, Boris Johnson says the economy is opened up again - which he has said he will - Hull would not be in tier two now, it would be in tier three. So, in effect, the current restrictions that are in place would be in place in Hull from December 2. That’s how it stands at the present time and there is no denying that whatsoever.
“We looked at the figures yesterday and in every ward there is hardly any variance, whether it be Kingswood or Southcoates or Holderness or Orchard Park - it is very, very similar figures that it is rife in every community, on every street. There will be people infected where you live.”
The public health director also explained her desire to have more control over schools - expressing a preference to close them to all but vulnerable students and children of key workers, should the city enter tier 3 next month.
“Obviously we should try to keep schools open as much as we possibly can,” she said.
“We’re now seeing that really strained given the number of teachers who are socially isolating or infected.
“What we need now is more flexibility than the Government is currently giving us in order to react to what is happening in our schools.
“One of the things we would like to do is what would have been open to us in tier 3 which is where we need, where schools are under particular pressure, to only have schools open for vulnerable children or key workers.
“The minimum of what we need to do is to keep them open for those.”
I can’t stress how serious this is. It really is a public health crisis Julia Weldon