BABY DIES AFTER MUM GETS COVID-19
FAMILY’S DEVASTATION AS THREE-DAY-OLD DIES AFTER MOTHER TESTS POSITIVE FOR CORONAVIRUS
A THREE-DAY-OLD baby has died after his mother tested positive for coronavirus.
Coolio Carl Justin John Morgan was born at the Princess of Wales Hospital, in Bridgend, on May 2.
But Coroner Graeme Hughes yesterday heard the infant was diagnosed with fetal bradycardia – a low heart rate – and was transferred to Singleton Hospital, in Swansea, when his condition deteriorated.
Tragically, the youngster – whose family come from Maesteg – died on May 5.
Coroner’s officer Lauren Howitt said: “The mother was found to be Covid-19 positive soon after delivery.”
The primary cause of death was given as severe hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy, meaning the brain being starved of blood and oxygen.
“Maternal Covid-19” was listed as a secondary cause of death of the baby.
He is believed to be the youngest person in Wales to have Covid-19 recorded on his death certificate.
The inquest was opened in Pontypridd but was adjourned to await full results of a post-mortem examination into the cause of his death.
A full hearing will be held next year with a provisional date of April 28, 2021.
South Wales Central coroner Mr Hughes said: “I pass on my condolences to the family in these most sad and depressing circumstances”
News of the latest fatality linked with coronavirus came as:
■ Public Health Wales said a total of 1,154 people have now died after testing positive for coronavirus, an increase of 22 on Tuesday’s figures;
■ A further 133 positive tests brought the total number of cases to 11,706;
■ Wales’ new “test, trace and protect” strategy was published;
■ First Minister Mark Drakeford said he hoped to publish his lockdown exit plan tomorrow; and
■ Economy Minister Ken Skates said Wales would “build back better” after the coronavirus pandemic to focus on a fairer and greener society.
At the Welsh Government’s daily press briefing, Mr Skates said while it was too early to begin easing restrictions, he would be consulting with partners in business and trade unions to help bring in his vision of a country that “travels less and works smarter” for Wales’ future out of lockdown.
He said: “This is part of our determined efforts to build back better. To create a fairer, better economy, a greener economy, a fairer and more equal and responsible society.
“A country in which wellbeing of people today and tomorrow and of our environment are our top priority.”
Mr Skates said there would be a focus on “locking in generational changes” experienced in recent weeks, which could see more people working from home from now on to reduce the amount of non-essential journeys.
But he said the call in England to avoid public transport was “certainly not our message here in Wales”, pointing to the fact one in five people do not own a car, and also the difficulties it would cause for future decarbonisation plans.
He said due to two-metre social distancing regulations, capacity on trains was expected to fall to just 15% of preoutbreak levels, and that plans to manage demand on public transport in the coming months could include prioritising it for key workers.
To “complement” the Government’s action on fairness, Mr Skates said none of its £500m Economic Resilience Fund, set up to offer financial support to help businesses, charities and social enterprises, would be granted to businesses registered in tax havens, an act he said should be replicated across the UK.
“I think it’s right that when you face a crisis, and you’ve spent so much money in addressing the economic and health implications of that crisis, that businesses that don’t pay tax should not benefit from the interventions that government is making,” he said.
“I’d like to see this sort of approach extended right across the United Kingdom. I think it makes sense. I think it demonstrates to the people of the UK as well that we are not going to go back to business as usual when we’re through this crisis.”
Mr Skates said he welcomed UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s announcement that the UK Government’s job retention scheme has been extended to October, saying 74% of Welsh businesses were applying for the financial support, the highest proportion in the UK.
This compares with 72% in Scotland, 67% in England, and 65% in Northern Ireland.
Later, Health Minister Vaughan Gething told a virtual session of the Senedd that Wales’ daily Covid-19 testing capacity would expand from 5,000 to 10,000 tests a day in the coming weeks as part of its new “test, trace, protect” strategy.
But he said as many as 20,000 tests a day could eventually be required in order to support diagnosis and treatment, population health surveillance, contact tracing and business continuity.
The plan includes:
■ Increasing the amount of tests for key workers;
■ A new home testing system for the public if they have symptoms; and
■ A new app to track symptoms in the population and contact others who have symptoms or have tested positive.
Mr Gething said: “We have to learn to live with the virus that is circulating in our communities for many months to come.
“Adopting this approach is a way in which people can be told quickly of their exposure to the virus so that they, in turn, can limit their exposure to others. This will help us to prevent infection and track the virus as lockdown restrictions are eased.”
Meanwhile, Mr Drakeford said Wales’ “road map” for exiting the coro
navirus lockdown is to be published by the end of this week.
He told Members of the Senedd the plan was “still being worked on” and needed to be “readily understood by the readership of the Welsh public”.
He was answering questions from Conservative MS Paul Davies, leader of the opposition, on whether scientific advice underpinning the road map would be published by the Welsh Government.
Mr Drakeford told a session of the plenary: “I’m very glad that we are publishing the scientific and technical advice.
“I agree entirely with Paul Davies that it’s important that the public is able to see the underpinning evidence that we draw on in making these challenging decisions.
“My hope is that we will be able to make our plan for exit, as he called it, public on Friday of this week.
“It is being worked on still. I want it to be clear and I want it to be capable of being readily understood by the
readership of the Welsh public.
“So, that is my ambition – that we will publish it on Friday and do it in a way that does the job that Paul Davies referred to: helping our fellow citizens in Wales to be clear about the plans of the Welsh Government and to understand the basis on which they are being drawn up.”
Mr Drakeford was also questioned about the “confusion” surrounding the lockdown regulations in Wales.
“Here in Wales, we are encouraging people to stay home,” Mr Drakeford said.
“That is the best way in which we can help one another to overcome this crisis. That’s why we’re all making the sacrifices that we are.
“But people are allowed now to leave their homes more than once a day for exercise, and if your way of taking exercise is to walk from your home to a river and to sit there, not near other people, and to go fishing then that is allowed within the rules in Wales.
“But it must be local and it must be done in a way that observes social distancing.”
He added: “The question that people in Wales need to ask themselves is: is my journey away from my own front door necessary?
“If it’s necessary, then you’re allowed to do it within the terms of our regulations.
“But the best advice to us all is to minimise the amount of contact we have with other people, because that way the circulation of the virus can be suppressed and we can all go on providing to the safety of ourselves and to the safety of others.”
Mr Drakeford said the Welsh Government believed in a “four-nation” approach in tackling the coronavirus pandemic.
“We think we’ve still got a fournation approach because all four parts of the UK are moving in the same direction in the same careful and cautious way,” he added.
DOWNING Street last night insisted the UK Government’s decision to stop sharing international comparisons of coronavirus deaths is not because they are embarrassed the UK appears to have had more fatalities than other European countries.
A graph showing a global Covid-19 death comparison has been shown at the daily Downing Street press conference since March, but was dropped this week – days after the UK’s declared death toll from coronavirus passed Italy’s to become the highest in Europe.
According to latest figures, the UK has recorded 33,186 deaths with Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic, now significantly higher than Italy’s death toll.
Worldwide, the UK’s death toll is second only to that of the United States.
And separate analysis of official figures from the Office for National Statistics suggests the actual UK coronavirus-related death toll is just under 41,000.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman told a Westminster briefing: “Since introducing slides, we have varied the content and format.
“As we made clear in the slides, it is difficult to compare statistics across countries as countries report deaths in different ways so it is not possible to make like-for-like comparisons.
“Numerous experts have said that reliable international comparisons won’t be possible until further along in the pandemic.”
Asked whether the decision to drop the slide was because of embarrassment, the spokesman said: “No.”
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer had earlier pressed Boris Johnson on the issue during Prime Minister’s Questions in the Commons yesterday.
Mr Johnson said it had been an “appalling epidemic” and that the final death toll would be “stark” and “deeply horrifying” as he sought to explain why the Government has stopped publishing the international comparisons.
He told Sir Keir that such comparisons are “premature” because “the correct and final way of making these comparisons will be when we have all the excess death totals for all the relevant countries”.
He added: “We do not yet have that data. I’m not going to try to pretend to the House that the figures, when they are finally confirmed, are anything other than stark and deeply, deeply horrifying.
“This has been an appalling epidemic. “What I can tell the House is that we are getting those numbers down, the number of deaths are coming down, the number of hospital admissions is down.”
Sir Keir said he was “baffled” by Mr Johnson’s dismissal of the need for international Covid-19 death comparisons, given the Government had done so for seven weeks with its press conference slides.
He told the Commons: “The problem with the Prime Minister’s answer is it’s pretty obvious that for seven weeks when we weren’t the highest number in Europe they were used for comparison purposes, as soon as we hit that unenviable place they’ve been dropped.”
During their clash in at PMQs, Mr Johnson also admitted the number of deaths in England’s care home sector had been “too high”.
Figures released this week suggested that care home deaths accounted for some 40% of coronavirus-related fatalities registered in England and Wales in the week ending May 1.
Sir Keir told MPs the UK Government had been “too slow to protect people in care homes” and referred to official advice in place until March 12, which said it was “very unlikely” that those receiving care in a care home or the community would become infected with Covid-19.
Mr Johnson replied: “No, it wasn’t true that the advice said that, and actually we brought the lockdown in care homes ahead of the general lockdown.”
The Labour leader then sent a letter to the PM asking him to “correct the record” in the Commons and to “recognise that this was official Government guidance regarding care homes”.
In his reply, Mr Johnson wrote: “I am disappointed that in the House today you chose to quote Public Health England (PHE) advice selectively and misleadingly, and I stand by my comments.”
The PM pointed to the sentence preceding the one quoted by Sir Keir, which said the guidance was “intended for the current position in the UK where there is currently no transmission of Covid-19 in the community”.
Mr Johnson said the Labour leader “neglected to provide the critical context at the start of the guidance”.
Dr Jenny Harries, the deputy chief medical officer for England, told the daily Downing Street press conference that “we did not recognise there was any sustained community transmission” before March 13.
However, by March 12 there had been 31 coronavirus-related deaths in
England, including one in a care home, according to Office for National Statistics (ONS) analysis of death registration data.
On the same day, Sir Patrick Vallance, the Government’s chief scientific adviser, said the number of people infected in the UK at that point could be between 5,000 and 10,000. Meanwhile, PHE was urging unwell people to stay away from visiting care homes, but said they should stay open otherwise.
Earlier that month, on March 5, England’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty told MPs it was “highly likely” there is “community transmission” of coronavirus in the UK.
And on March 10, England’s deputy chief medical officer Dr Jenny Harries said the start of the UK peak of the coronavirus epidemic was expected within the next fortnight.
Of the 6,035 deaths linked to Covid19 and registered in the week ending May 1, some 2,423 (40%) were in care homes, compared with 3,214 (53%) in hospitals.
Mr Johnson has announced a £600m package for coronavirus infection control in English care homes.
The Commons clash came as ministers defended the easing of lockdown restrictions in England amid signs of confusion and anger over the new rules.
Moves to unlock the property market mean that, from yesterday, people in England will be able to invite prospective buyers into their homes but will still be unable to visit family or friends.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps insisted the UK Government is taking a “common sense” approach, gradually easing the restrictions as the outbreak is brought under control.
But with ministers encouraging employees in England to return to work where possible, he urged people not to “flood back” on to public transport, warning that the system will not be able to cope.
The changes to the guidelines in England mean home-buyers and renters will be able to complete purchases and view properties in person, while visiting estate agents, developer sales offices or show homes will also be allowed.
The Government estimates that more than 450,000 buyers and renters have been unable to progress their plans to move house since lockdown measures were introduced in March. In other developments:
■ A 14-year-old boy with no underlying health conditions has died from a Kawasaki-like disease linked to coronavirus; and
■ Mr Johnson paid tribute to Belly Mujinga, a railway ticket office worker who died with coronavirus after being spat at while on duty, saying: “The fact that she was abused for doing her job is utterly appalling.”
In other changes in England – which have not been adopted by the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – people will be allowed to take unlimited outdoor exercise and to sunbathe in parks and public places.
They will also be able to meet one other person from another household in a public space, as long as the twometre rule is respected, while golf clubs, tennis courts and angling have also been given the green light to open.
Restrictions on how far people can travel to get to the countryside, national parks and beaches in England have also been lifted – but people have been warned to respect local communities, keep their distance from others and avoid hot spots or busy areas.