Minutes:
Prof Jim McManus and County Councillor Tim Hutchings presented to the Committee.
All the information provided this evening is in the public domain and is taken from official sources.
On December 31 2019 the world health organisation was notified of a novel outbreak of a new form of pneumonia in Wuhan in China, the cases started escalating and it was identified as a CoronaVirus and was eventually call Covid-19.
Today the world Health organisation declared a pandemic, this essentially means there is a global epidemic. This information has a tendency to cause panic however for the UK very little will change. The technical declaration of a pandemic by the world health organisation means states have a legal requirement to coordinate actions and follow certain guidelines, a global epidemic was expected and it is the view of the chief medical officer that the UK are roughly 2 weeks behind where Italy is now. We should bear in mind that Italy has a much older population than the UK and we still have time to start social distancing.
There are 4 main priorities for Government
Contain - identify cases, contact trace those effected and try and stop the spread
Delay - asking everyone with symptoms of a cough and fever to self-isolate for 7
days, social distancing
Research - to identify a possible treatment plan or cure.
Mitigate - to treat those who require medical intervention
These are the standard fazes of any response to a pandemic.
We are currently moving from containment to delay.
The common symptoms are a fever, a dry cough and fatigue. Less common symptoms are headache, nasal congestion, sore throat, coughing up sputum and a shortness of breath. Very rarely you get a high fever, coughing up blood, the white blood cells decrease and you can get kidney failure.
One of the reasons the death rate appeared so high in China was due to the fact you were only tested if you were hospitalised and those were the most server cases, there could be thousands of people who contracted the virus and recovered but those people were never tested. The full picture still isn’t really known.
The assumption is that 81% of people that contract this virus will have mild symptoms, 14% sever, 5% critical and will require hospitalisation and 1 – 2% will die. What is not know is how many people have already contracted the virus or are asymptomatic.
The aim is to flatten the curve and delay the number of people who require hospitalisation, this will ensure the NHS are not overwhelmed and are able to care for those requiring assistance
For DBC there are several things that need to be done:
· Public reassurance, Elected Members are in a great position to help with this
· Business continuity plans need to be in place, it is thought that the peak will be 12 weeks from now, at its worse this could see 80% of people infected with 21% off sick and plans need to be in place to deal with this.
· Delay the spread of this virus to your staff and members as much as possible, ensure.
· Social responsibility, it is the most vulnerable that will be affected by this, people taking responsibility for themselves will ensure the spread is limited to those people.
The advice remains the same, wash your hands, practice good hygiene and be sensible.
Councillor Maddern would like to know if the slides can be shared on social media and with other Councillors and officers. Prof Jim McManus confirmed that they are for public viewing, there is also a link on hertfordshire.gov.uk/coronavirus there is a hub that links to all the NHS and PHA information and directs away from NHS 111 phone calls onto the website.
Councillor Maddern would also like to know what happens if you are in the at risk category. Prof Jim McManus confirms that those in the “at risk” category would need to contact their health care professional for specific advice.