Coronavirus contact tracing starts as number of cases creeps up again
A national contact tracing started today (Thursday 28 May) aimed at tackling the spread of the covid-19 coronavirus.
The system will require those who are told that they have been near someone with the virus to quarantine or self-isolate for 14 days.
MPs of all parties, including Conservatives, have said that the public may be less willing to comply after the row about Dominic Cummings, senior adviser to the Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Mr Cummings drove to Durham during the lockdown with his wife and son after she appeared to have contracted the coronavirus.
Locally, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Brighton and Hove has gone up to 434 – an increase of five on the figure published yesterday.
In East Sussex the total now stands at 708 and in West Sussex it is 1,320, making 2,462 for Sussex as a whole.
The rate per 100,000 in Brighton and Hove is 149.5 which remains one of the lowest in the country.
Brighton and Hove Sussex University Hospitals (BSUH) has now recorded 127 deaths of people with the virus.
Some of the deaths may have been from other causes but the patients had been tested and found to have covid-19.
The trust runs the Royal Sussex County Hospital and the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital, in Brighton, and the Princess Royal Hospital, in Haywards Heath.
The local NHS figures do not, however, include those who died from the coronavirus at home or in a hospice, care home or nursing home.
Sussex Community Foundation Trust, which has its headquarters at Brighton General Hospital, has reported 15 deaths so far. Although the Brighton General is no longer run as a hospital, the trust runs hospitals elsewhere in Sussex.
Western Sussex Hospitals, which shares its leadership with BSUH and runs hospitals in Worthing and Chichester, has now recorded 105 deaths.
Another neighbouring trust, East Sussex Healthcare, which runs hospitals in Eastbourne and Hastings, has reported 80 deaths, while the figure for Surrey and Sussex Healthcare has risen to 241.
Nationally, the number of deaths of people with the virus rose by 377 to 37,837. The total included not just hospital patients but those who died in care homes, hospices or at home.
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I run our famous Sussex Heights building and from day 1 i’ve tried to enforce self-isolation of all residents and have asked residents to report on neighbors comings and goings in an effort to keep us all safe. Even with the extra surveillance equipment we have it has been very difficult to enforce. We are just a small residential block, so I am very keen to see how the gov will be able to enforce this on a national scale.