County passes sad milestone of 3,000 deaths

DERBYSHIRE has now surpassed the tragic milestone of 3,000 Covid-19 deaths, a year and a half into the pandemic.

Government data shows the first Covid-19 death in Derbyshire was in Bolsover district in the week ending March 20 last year, a few days before the first national lockdown.

Now the county has amassed a total of 3,001 Covid-19 deaths, as of July 27, 15 months later.

These are people where Covid-19 was mentioned as a cause on their death certificate.

Nationally, a quarter of all residents who have died after contracting Covid-19 passed away in care homes. The Care Quality Commission says 861 people who contracted Covid died in Derbyshire care homes between April 10 last year and March 31 this year.

Dean Wallace, Derbyshire County Council’s public health director, told a meeting earlier this year that Covid-19, unlike with other pandemics, has not been and is not a “great leveller” - affecting everyone equally.

The virus has been grossly unequal in its impact on the most vulnerable and deprived he and other professionals have detailed, he said.

Mr Wallace said: “It picks out the most weak, the most frail and the most vulnerable in society and those cohorts of people suffer the most and that is completely unacceptable and needs to be avoided in future.

“We need to learn the lessons in this in terms of health inequalities and how we support the most vulnerable groups across our community.

“The most deprived groups are at significantly more risk of a severe outcome - in this case, death, from Covid-19.”