The city council is preparing for Brighton and Hove to move to Tier 2 following a “worrying” rise in cases amongst older working adults.
After just a small increase in cases the previous week, the number of cases in the city in the seven days up to 23 October rose 60%.
Over the week, the weekly average rate per 100,000 rose past 100 for the first time, reaching 152 by 23 September.
The council says most confirmed cases continue to be aged 15-24 years old, 18-22 year olds account for 44% of cases. This includes all young people, not just students.
In comparison with comparative university cities, Brighton and Hove is among those with the lowest rate of cases overall.
We are however seeing a worrying rise in cases among older working adults. Cases tripled among adults aged 40-59 years old in the seven days up to 22 October and there was a 27% increase among people aged 60+.
Speaking after a meeting of the Local Outbreak Engagement Board and partners, Cllr Sue Shanks, Chair of the city’s Health and Wellbeing Board said:
“It’s sensible for Brighton and Hove to start to plan for a move to Tier 2 (High Alert level) and think about what that would mean to all aspects of life.
“The decision to escalate to Tier 2 would be made by central Government following consultation with the council and our Local Outbreak Engagement Board, which is made up of councillors, city leaders and public health colleagues.
“We do believe that we are very close to the thresholds whereby other regions have started to have those discussions with Government which sees them then escalate to Tier 2.
“Covid is in our city and rates are growing. Covid kills people and we all need to do all we can to stop it and protect our most vulnerable communities.
“These include people who are already unwell, are elderly and the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities in the city. Please follow the guidelines and don’t take risks.”
Alistair Hill, Director of Public Health for the city said: “We must all continue to do everything they can to stop the spread of Covid.
“Please think Hands-Face-Space. Limit how many people you see in a day, maintain social distancing and keep to the rule of six.
“Wear a face-covering if there’s a risk you can’t maintain two metres distance in busy places like streets, queues and bus stops – not just when required to do so.
“At the first sign of symptoms self-isolate and get tested to prevent the virus spreading.”
Scaremongering par excellence
Yes definitely, scaremongering,15 patients with covid at each.
This is NOT a decision that should rest with our local councillors that have proved time after time that they are completely incompetent in everything they do.
and council gets more money if it says it is about to die
GOD SAVE US
“7. Decision-Making
The LOEB is an advisory group and does not have specific formal decision-making
powers. If the LOEB is required to agree on an issue (e.g. on the content of externalfacing communications in response to an outbreak), it should seek to do so by
consensus. If this proves impossible, members may vote on an issue with each
member (including any substitutes) having one vote. In the event of a tied-vote the
Chair (or Deputy Chair if they are chairing the meeting in the Chair’s absence) shall
have a casting vote.”
The only thing the council can do if we move to tier two is help support food banks as the unemployment levels will be eye-watering. Many businesses are only just clinging on and this will push them over the edge and they will inevitability let more staff go. Private residents will ignore the rulings as most people are not frightened of covid anymore and it will just be businesses such as restaurants etc that adhere to them and end up going under.
So by my reckoning about 450 tested positive which means that of those (if statistics are to be believed) 15 people could die,and yet how many die as a result of Dementia and very little is reported about those.
The diference between covid and dimentia is , that you can prevent covid , but not dementia!!!!
I take it you mean Covid 19.Coronaviruses have been around for a very long time.
I might add I find it difficult to understand the statistics and how we receive Covid19 death rates from the day before and yet it takes days to get (accurate) test results.
Well mate when someone dies, they are dead, and people know that they are dead without having to test that..
What I get from this article is that the council is recognising that it – and we – need to be prepared to go into tier two.
There’s also some good advice there, plus they warn about who is most at risk.
It IS true that several people will die of age related disease anyway, but covid-19 deaths are more avoidable if we follow the health guidelines as given.
It is also true that we don’t really know how bad each area is because testing is so patchy and unreliable – and an increase in cases is often just a statistical blip created by extra testing being available.
But, make no mistake, that the whole of Europe is going deeper into the second wave of this pandemic as winter weather gets worse. It will be even worse for casualties and economic impact if we don’t take it seriously.
This evening, France has announced a full lockdown for the month of November. I’m dreading something similar for the UK.
Make people wear masks on buses, or show exemption, stop demonstrations in the city, most not wearing masks.
Given the hospitality heavy industry of Brighton this will be tragic for the city. No need to go to tier 2.
Well this took them longer than I expected. They need to jump on the ‘take your lockdown and if you’re good girls and boys we ‘might’ let you spend Xmas with your family’ train.
The councillors will of course not have to worry as their salaries and jobs will be protected no matter what.
We really need to risk all those jobs for something with a morbidity rate in the single figures.
Has anyone else noticed the Biased Broadcasting Corporation new language. The focus is on cases( which will of course rise as we are now testing exponentially more ppl AND it’s now flu season so false positives will rise ) and “died within 28 days of testing positive” – whilst making zero reference to the number of those who tested dying principally of the co-morbitity issue they also had or tbh of wether Covid was even an issue to do with the death.
“our Local Outbreak Engagement Board, which is made up of councillors, city leaders and public health colleagues.
Can someone please tell me who are our “City Leaders”? Who nominated them as such? Or is this a big secret we’re not allowed to know? Or