Biggest driver in Doncaster Covid-19 cases coming from secondary school children and under-30s but vaccines have 'broken link'

Councillors and Doncaster public sector figures heard that the Delta variant – first detected in India – is responsible for the rise in cases.

Cases are expected to rise still across the borough before a tipping point with greater numbers of vaccinated residents.

As of June 18, Doncaster has 74 cases per 100,000 people. The national average is 63.

But a key message from health bosses was that vaccinations were driving down hospitalisation and deaths across the borough.

The meeting heard that Doncaster has had three Covid-19 deaths since May 1 and just two people are in hospital with the virus.

Jon Gleek, head of strategy and performance at DMBC, said: “The most notable age brackets are our youngest residents in the borough within the zero to 19 age group but when we drill even further into that, it’s being driven by secondary school aged children.

“The second band is the 20-39 age group and that’s being driven by bottom half of that bracket which is the 20s and early 30s.

“So the main band driving some of our cases is from around age 15 to the early 30s and that’s what’s primarily causing our cases to rise.

“But what’s really important to focus on is what you can’t see and we haven’t had significant increases in the oldest residents in our community, very small handfuls of cases in these cohorts, so that’s always good news because we know that these cases are the ones often with the poorest outcomes.

“The vaccination effort has really broken the link between infections and hospitalisations and in fact, today, there are only actually two patients with Covid-19 within the Doncaster and Bassetlaw trust.

“I don’t think there’s been anything higher than three throughout the whole of June.”

Dr Rupert Suckling, director of public health at Doncaster Council, added that national restrictions were extended because it failed two of the four Government tests, mainly around the new variants.

But he said he believes Government will not extend the restrictions past July 19 at this stage in time.

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