Meeting documents

To receive the update.

The Somerset Health and Wellbeing Board supports the approach described in Living with Covid-19 and will only receive exception reports on Covid-19 as an agenda item if the situation changes.

Alison Bell, Strategic Manager-Public Health, and Joe McGregor-Harper, Covid-19 Health Protection Practitioner-Public Health, made the presentation; the first slide covered the Background and Context of the Covid-19 pandemic (declared on 11 March 2020) and the response in Somerset, which as a system functioned very well.  The last meeting of the Somerset Covid-19 Engagement Board was held on 14 March as the response transfers into the ‘Living with Covid-19 Plan’ which will be administered by the Health and Wellbeing Board.  Other topics covered were the aims of the plan, the ADPH (Association of Directors of Public Health) framework, the prevention of negative outcomes, risk mitigation by and for individuals (including behavioural insights via focus groups), management of local outbreaks (including surveillance), risk mitigations for high-risk settings (including care homes and SEND schools), emergency response, and governance (the Health and Wellbeing Board oversees the Health Protection Board and its Health Protection Team).

The Board then discussed the presentation.  It was asked what the incidence of long-term covid was, if this was a significant problem, and if there was a plan to deal with it; the answer was that there are different cohorts of people.  At any time, just under 2% of people are testing positive for acute covid, while another group of people had actually had Covid and within the first three months had lingering symptoms like a cough and feeling under the weather.  Then there were the official long Covid sufferers who had tested positive more than three months ago but were still reporting symptoms of post-viral illness (fatigue and inability to return to work).  Those with official long Covid are supported by the NHS through special services, and many are health or care workers.  AB said that she could get the actual numbers for those who were interested, which included the Vice Chair (ACTION). 

It was enquired what the current situation is as regards organisations being asked to send back Covid testing kits and what the plan is going forward for care/residential homes and SEND schools; it was replied that limited testing is still available for staff in health and care settings although not for SEND schools, and if any symptoms of infectious disease of any type are identified in a high-risk setting, then test kits will be sent out by the UK Health Security Agency in order to determine a definitive diagnosis.  It was asked how any increase in variants would be monitored, given the reduction in testing; it was responded that there has been a national discussion on robust surveillance and that the Office of National Statistics is still monitoring the data through a national prevalence survey (the latest data showed that 1.87% of people through a random sample of PCR specimens were testing positive).  The specimens are sent to the lab with a certain amount being analysed to determine if there are any new variants; any results from persons testing positive while in hospital or a social care setting are sent to a different laboratory to analyse the genome.  Health personnel on the ground are also able to determine differences in symptoms and frequency via ‘soft intel’.

The Somerset Health and Wellbeing Board supports the approach described in Living with Covid-19 and will only receive exception reports on Covid-19 as an agenda item if the situation changes.