Doncaster health bosses urge caution as Covid-19 rates in over 65s rise

Laurie Mott, head of public health intelligence at Doncaster Council, said that cases were on the rise in the age category.

But a recent meeting was told that this was not transferring into large numbers of hospital admissions compared to previous spikes.

This has been put down to the vaccination uptake across Doncaster which stands at 82 per cent for first doses and 74 per cent for second jabs.

Doncaster’s current Covid-19 rate stands around 380 infections per 100,000 people above Sheffield at 352 but below Rotherham at 403.

The meeting also heard that there are eight people in intensive care with Covid-19 – down considerably since previous spikes last year. Mr Mott said pressures were building in hospitals but not as much as waves in 2020.

Previous datasets showed that the borough’s trend of cases seemed to be ‘two weeks behind’ the north west of England with many areas below the rate of Doncaster’s.

Mr Mott said: “The cases in this category don’t seem to be translating into huge increases in hospital activity. This compares what’s been going on since the beginning of January, 2020, and what we’ve seen is those waves of activity following the increases in case rates over the past year.

“Those increases have not been the huge increases in rates we saw a few weeks ago have not translated into huge increases in admissions into hospital.

There were 35 people being actively treated for Covid-19 in hospital, and eight people in ICU, of those 35, 25 are from Doncaster, 10 in Bassetlaw.

“The numbers of people who are currently being treated for Covid-19 has been creeping up but nothing like as it was around January and September time.

“So at the moment, our pressures are building the hospital but they’re not as significant as they were before, which is I guess why lockdowns continued to loosen.

“In terms of impacts on death, the picture continues to be very very hopeful indeed and we have proceeded, since the beginning of the year, to have very few deaths.

“I think there have been four in the last 28 days. So, the numbers of deaths due to Covid-19 have fallen significantly, and are showing at the moment no sign of increasing.”

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