‘Rapid response is key’ to tackling any virus second wave

Rapid response will be key to preventing a second coronavirus spike in Peterborough according to the city’s director of public health.

The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Health and Wellbeing Board has met as part of the National Test and Trace scheme to help prevent a second spike of the coronavirus.

The online meeting on Mondaywas called to review the region’s Local Outbreak Control Plan and discuss measures to tackle any further outbreaks of the virus.

Dr Liz Robin, director of public health for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough told the meeting: “It is absolutely critical that we get this right.

“The Local Outbreak Control Plan describes the work that we will deliver locally as our part of the national Test and Trace model.

“We have to get the processes in place to identify and manage local outbreaks of Covid-19 as part of the gradual relaxation of lock-down. Test and Trace and local outbreak plans are necessary to move us back towards our ‘new normal’, but they are not sufficient alone.

“We need to continue to observe the social distancing and hygiene measures that the government is asking us to do.

“One of the principles of our Local Outbreak Control Plan is that it should build on existing local systems to protect health and manage outbreaks of infectious disease.

“To do that, we work across the entire Public Health England team – which is regional for the East of England – including local authority public health teams, environmental health officers and others.

“We have strong local systems already in place, recognised by government that are used to manage Tuberculosis, Norovirus, Meningitis and all sorts of other outbreaks of infectious diseases and we can build upon these to manage COVID-19.

Cllr Linda Jones (Labour, Cambridge City Council) asked: “Are we confident that our testing processes are capable of coping with the needs should there be a second spike and how quickly are we able to react to a local outbreak of Covid-19 as these are critical elements in defeating the virus?”.

Dr Robin replied: “Timely reporting to combat the virus is critical and we’re very aware that speed is of the essence having watched the infection rates grow very quickly in the earlier phases of the pandemic before lockdown.

“The Test and Trace system reports rapidly through to the Public Health England team using a single email address and a single reporting phone number.

“Everyday surveillance meetings are held with the Clinical Commissioning Group, the Local Authority and Public Health Business Intelligence Teams who then analyse that data giving us a very good early warning system of any potential local outbreak.

“As an example, if a report comes through of an outbreak in a care home and they call Public Health England to report it, that information is passed immediately to a specific ‘care home cell’ to deal with that outbreak and the same is true of a workplace or a school.

“In terms of testing capacity, we have more than is needed because we’re at a low level of Covid-19 in the population at the moment.

“This is a good thing because if we see a second spike of COVID-19 in the population then we’ll need that additional testing capacity so its good to know it’s there.

“Large parts of our region are rural; people may not have easy access to a car or public transport or even to the internet. The plan identifies these issues and because of that we have teams ready to react rapidly to rural needs should there be a breakout.

The members unanimously voted to approve the Local Outbreak Control Plan, with Dr Robin and her team acknowledging the input and questions received from the board.

The draft version of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Local Outbreak Control Plan was put to central government for approval on June 30.

Once approved, the final version will be made available to the public.