Agenda and minutes

The notes of the previous Board meeting on 24 May 2022 were endorsed.

The Director of Public Health or their representative to report.

The Deputy Director of Public Health advised that there were no urgent items for

escalation from the Health Protection Board and that the Board were now meeting monthly rather than fortnightly.

A Report from the Health Protection Board on current issues, data and matters for information.

The Board received a presentation from the Health Protection Board on current issues, data and matters for information.

Matters included in the presentation (slides attached) and explanation which highlighted:

•                 data from a national level which showed early signs of possible increase in infections, hospital admissions remained similar, intensive care unit and high dependency unit admissions remained very low.

•                 Death rates continued to decrease and almost all adults in England (99.3 per cent) had COVID-19 antibodies. It was estimated that 1 in 32 people in the UK were suffering with long COVID symptoms.

•                 data for Devon covering estimated figures of people testing positive for COVID-19 in the week to 11 June which showed a figure of about 2.33%

•                 the percentage of people testing positive in the South West followed a very similar pattern to the national picture

•                 the headline points for Devon which showed that Covid-19 specific deaths and Covid-19 patients in high dependency or intensive care units remained low, current total deaths were in-line with seasonal averages indicative of the effectiveness of the vaccine programme; around 1 in 45 people were currently affected by the Long Covid with symptoms after more than 12 weeks from the infection and Omicron sub-variants BA.4 and BA.5 were increasing and now accounting for the majority of cases.

•                 the latest figures for hospital admissions due to Covid19 in the county were also presented.

The Board were informed that the increase in transmissions were likely the result of more social gatherings around the jubilee bank holiday dates and indications were the new sub-variants were likely to be more transmissible.

The main source of data information was now coming from the Office of National Statistics Infection survey as fewer people were getting tested and information from this source was getting less reliable. The local version of the Covid-19 dashboard was to be updated shortly to take account of information coming from a variety of sources.

The public were being advised if they showed any Covid-19 symptoms to stay at home.

The Board noted the position.   

The dashboard pages available here:

UK summary: UK Summary England Summary | Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK (data.gov.uk)

Devon Dashboard: Coronavirus dashboard and data in Devon - Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Interactive Map: Interactive map of cases | Coronavirus in the UK (data.gov.uk)

There was nothing further to update on this item which had not already been covered.

A presentation by the Director of Public Health or their representative.

The Director of Public Health Steve Brown presented to the Board (slides attached) an update on the Contain Outbreak Management Fund. This covered:

• the different grants and funding received
• the main programmes funded through the money received including community testing and outreach and a self-isolation support grant programme
• recognition of the good work of the Test and Trace team
• information on how money was spent on compliance and support for wider vulnerable groups
• details on support for education outbreaks and targeted interventions such as for young people, families and refugees
• case studies – outreach vaccination, self-isolation support, Devon and Cornwall Chinese Association, Grant and Infrastructure Funding
• next steps for support and programmes and evaluation

The Chair thanked the Director for the presentation and information and remarked how well Team Devon had operated and he had seen the Outreach Vaccination service in Sidmouth.

The Board noted the position. 

There was a question regarding the vaccination of children at the outreach sites. The meeting was informed that some sites did operate child vaccines. The current figures for Devon for children vaccinated in the 5-11 age group were around 12 per cent up take, which compared to 9 per cent nationally; for 12-15 age group it was 64 per cent in Devon compared to 53 per cent nationally.  

The Board and Head of Communications and Media to consider any key messages to be communicated.

The Board and Head of Communications and Media considered the key messages coming from the meeting.

These included: ‘Monitoring of cases were still continuing and that Covid was still in circulation as people were still falling ill and even getting the disease a second time. People should continue to be careful and to get vaccinated as the service was still available. If you are ill and have Covid symptoms, then you should stay at home and continue to be mindful around people who are vulnerable.’

With increasing numbers of COVID cases, it is proposed to set a meeting for July 2022 and for the position to be reviewed in September 2022, following the summer recess. The July date has been set as 28^th July at 10.30am.

Members noted the date of the next meeting as 28 July 2022 @ 10.30pm.

There would be a review in July on whether there was a need to hold any further meetings of the Board.