General Covid 19 news

[SteveH]

A North Wales doctor has expressed surprise at the number of people not wanting a coronavirus vaccine.

Dr Helen Alefounder, a GP based in Colwyn Bay, said she had found that some people were completely against getting the jab.

Speaking to BBC Radio Wales, she said that others were initially reluctant before going ahead with the vaccine after being reassured by staff.

She said: "The vast majority [are] very grateful, really keen to get it as soon as possible, happy to come down whatever time of day it might be.

cont  https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/north-wales-gp-surprised-number-19848455

[SteveH]

Health board issues important vaccine update for people with underlying health conditions
Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board has mapped out its hopes for the coming weeks

People in North Wales with underlying health conditions should start getting vaccinated against coronavirus next month.

Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board [BCUHB] has announced plans to start giving jabs to those aged 16 to 64 with underlying health conditions from March.

The health board announced the plan as it outlined their vaccine strategy for the coming four weeks.

Gill Harris, deputy chief executive of the health board, said: "This week we start a new phase in the vaccination programme.

cont https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/health-board-issues-important-vaccine-19864354

[SteveH]

The new rules on exercise - what you can and can't do in Wales
First Minister Mark Drakeford outlines the changes - and explains why people still drive to exercise or go to gyms

From Saturday, February 20, the number of people who can meet outdoors for exercise will increase from two to four.

But those four people can be from no more than two households.

This exercise will still have to be carried out locally – people are still banned from driving anywhere to do it.

cont    https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/new-rules-exercise-come-today-19877875

[SteveH]

A SECOND outbreak of coronavirus within a North Wales hospital has been declared.                                              ref Pioneer

Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board (BCUHB) officials have confirmed five wards are currently dealing with cases of the virus at Bangor’s Ysbyty Gwynedd.

Dr Karen Mottart, medical director at Ysbyty Gwynedd, issued a statement on Monday evening confirming the situation.

She said: “As of this morning, we are caring for 75 patients with COVID-19 infection, of which, 49 are linked with the outbreak.

“A programme of staff and patient testing is underway. All patients who have tested positive are being appropriately isolated, in line with Public Health Wales’ policy on infection prevention and control measures.

“As we continue with a programme of additional testing, we expect to find more cases in patients and staff who are not currently symptomatic. This approach will help us build an accurate picture of the current situation, enabling us to safely manage patients and prevent any unknown potential transmission.”

“The virus is still circulating in our communities, and with the new variants that are more transmissible, more patients with COVID-19 have been admitted into our hospitals than at any other time during the pandemic.

“A significant risk is that a patient can test negative for COVID-19 while the virus is in its incubation period, and then test positive after being admitted to hospital.

“All hospitals face the challenge of balancing the risk of infection while providing care for those who need it.

“Please help us to reduce the risk of infection by only attending our hospital sites if it is absolutely necessary. Visiting remains restricted, except for limited circumstances, but people should continue to attend appointments unless they are told otherwise.”

[SteveH]

In an update posted on Tuesday, February 23, the Deputy Chief Executive of Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board (BCUHB) Gill Harris explained how the region was leading the way.

She outlined how, in the last few days, BCUHB has given over 200,000 doses of the vaccine.
This includes those who have had first and second jabs.

She said: “Due to central vaccines production capacity, vaccine supplies again this week are limited. From early March, we expect an increase in the numbers of vaccines available to us.

“This will enable us to ramp up the numbers of vaccinations we give in order to reach the next target set by Welsh Government to complete the vaccination of cohorts 1 to 9 by the end of April.

“Over 60 per cent of the over 65s have also now been vaccinated. When GP surgeries take delivery of further AstraZeneca vaccines over the coming days, they will continue to vaccinate priority group 5 before moving on to priority group 6.

“We have been working hard to ensure that no-one from priority groups 1 to 4 has been left behind. However, we still have a small number of people who we have not been able to reach.”

Anyone in these groups who has not been contacted should call the hotline on 03000 840004 to arrange an appointment.

In North Wales, as of February 21:

• 213,107 COVID-19 vaccines had been administered

• Of these, 174,870 vaccine doses went to individuals in the top four priority cohorts (both first and second doses)

• Last week (February 14 - 21), 19,621 people received their first vaccination

• 91 per cent of priority groups 1 to 4 had been vaccinated or have been offered an appointment.

• 63 per cent of those in priority group 5 had been vaccinated. When we reach 80 per cent of this cohort in the coming days, we will start to vaccinate those in priority group 6.

 “This week we will receive a total of 26,380 vaccines (16,380 doses of the Pfizer vaccine and 10, 000 of the AstraZeneca vaccine). The Pfizer vaccines will be used primarily for second doses.

“In order to prevent vaccine wastage, we have finalised a standby list – agreed with partners - of staff who will be called upon if any spare vaccines become available at the end of each day.

“These staff may be called upon to attend one of our Mass Vaccination Centres at short, and occasionally very short notice. This standby list will not be opened up to the general public.”

Discussions are ongoing at a national level to finalise the criteria for non-paid carers who are included in priority group six and there is expected to be an update made on this matter later in the week.                                     ref Pioneer

[SteveH]

Vaccine warning as 90 North Wales care home staff test positive for Covid in a single month
A Conwy Council officer issued the stark warning in a briefing to the authority as he revealed that 30 care homes in the county had been designated "red" last month

cont  https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/vaccine-warning-90-north-wales-19915119?IYA-reg=49560bcd-5a9c-47f0-8fc5-ba2e71710589

[SteveH]

ONE million doses of the coronavirus vaccine have been administered across Wales and more than a third of the Welsh adult population have received at least one dose.

Today’s [Saturday, February 27] data shows 916,336 people - over 38 per cent of Wales’ adult population - have received at least one dose. Combined with the 89,053 second doses also delivered, 1,005,389 doses altogether have reached people’s arms.

This has all been achieved in just 12 weeks.
Today’s data also shows Wales has vaccinated:

91.2% of over 80s
93.4% of 75 to 79 year olds
92.9% of 70 to 74 year olds
87.6% of those classes as clinically extreme vulnerable
And more than 162,941 front-line health and social care workers.

https://www.northwalespioneer.co.uk/news/19123394.one-million-vaccine-doses-delivered-wales/

[SteveH]

THERE are “definite lessons to learn” one year on from Wales’s first case of coronavirus, the country’s Health Minister has said.

Vaughan Gething said the country would “definitely have done things differently” if it had the knowledge about Covid-19 that is available now.

In the last year, Public Health Wales recorded 203,625 confirmed cases and 5,340 deaths of people with coronavirus.

Mr Gething told BBC Wales’s Sunday Supplement programme: “When I think about when coronavirus arrived in Europe, across Europe we plainly were shocked because we hadn’t had the sort of significant impact that Sars and Mers had in other parts of the world.

“You can see that in the way that northern Italy was overwhelmed and parts of Spain were overwhelmed, we saw real difficulties in France as well as here.

“We didn’t have the same level of response that other parts of the world did, who were much more rapid to take the sort of society-wide interventions that we eventually did.”

cont  https://www.northwalespioneer.co.uk/news/19124622.health-minister-says-lessons-learn-anniversary-first-covid-19-case-wales/

[Ian]

I'm fed up with politicians acting as apologists for the mess the UK government and others made at the outset. The information that was emerging in January was quite definitive and by 31st Jan the NHS had declared its first ever ‘Level 4 critical incident’, cases were emerging across the Far East and Tibet, the Emirates, Finland, Singapore and France were seeing them.

Bear in mind Johnson decided to go on holiday on Feb 14th. That's how seriously he was taking the threat.
And now, everyone is saying how wonderful he is, as our vaccination programme is ahead of most other countries'. Just a shame that Government inaction when it really mattered has led to the staggeringly high death toll in the UK, the fourth highest in the world.

[Blongb]

I'm fed up with politicians acting as apologists for the mess the UK government and others made at the outset. The information that was emerging in January was quite definitive and by 31st Jan the NHS had declared its first ever ‘Level 4 critical incident’, cases were emerging across the Far East and Tibet, the Emirates, Finland, Singapore and France were seeing them.

Bear in mind Johnson decided to go on holiday on Feb 14th. That's how seriously he was taking the threat.
And now, everyone is saying how wonderful he is, as our vaccination programme is ahead of most other countries'. Just a shame that Government inaction when it really mattered has led to the staggeringly high death toll in the UK, the fourth highest in the world.

Retrospective hindsight is a marvellous gift. when you look at where we are now he and his government didn't do such a bad job. A great deal of the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of the British Public who will not take the Pandemic seriously. Oh the rules don't apply to me, Oh I got board stopping at home and I only had a little Party with my 200 friends. Oh I thought my girl friends  and I would be OK if we stuck together on our Hen do in Spain. Oh we only went up to York for the Races but it would be all right because we went up on our own Coach. Oh what do you mean Snowdon is closed and I can't clime it because of Lockdown. I've just driven up from London especially. It goes on and on, Only yesterday I went for a walk on the West Shore only to be confronted by a party of 14 come over from Liverpool to walk the dogs at the seaside. Every one thinks they are a special case and bend or even break the rules entirely. It's not all the fault of the Government.

[Hugo]

Blongb I do agree entirely with your comments about people not sticking to the rules and I find it so annoying.    I look at the West Shore web cam sometimes and on a good day there are about two dozen cars parked there and they are certainly not all people with mobility problems that have driven there to start their exercise.
I was speaking on the phone recently to a person who lives in Trinity Crescent and there are even more cars parked there doing the same thing.    The person I spoke to said that Police cars drive past quite often but obviously they are not stopping to check on whether the drivers of the vehicles have a valid reason for being there.
When will people learn and obey the regulations, we may not like them but they are there for our protection and in any case we do do have the strict curfew laws that some other countries have
I still think that the likes of Cummings and Stanley Johnson have had an adverse impact on peoples attitudes to tobeying the rules

[Helig]

It is the same here with few people complying with the Covid regulations and doing what they like. Each day I pass by motorhomes, mobile homes etc, parked down by the river. They have stayed there overnight before visiting then travelling further the next day. They have English registration plates. Police walk, or drive, by and never attempt to ask them what they are up to, or where they are from. I have watched them a number of times walking by and looking at them but that is as far as it goes. In general, although there are regulations for Covid, the Police fail to enforce them, something which is well known to all concerned.

I do think the Westminster government has blood on its hands because:

they failed to act after Operation Cygnus in 2016.

When Covid first became known they didn't taken it seriously enough. It was considered to be similar to flu.

The first COBRA meeting wasn't held until March 2020.

Boris Johnson missed 5 COBRA meetings on the virus.

PPE supplies were very low and insufficient. The Tories passed contracts to their cronies who had no experience in this field. Some of the PPE produced was unsuitable and couldn't be used. Millions of pounds of public money was wasted. Meanwhile the medical people on the frontline were wearing bin bags for protection.

Track and Trace was launched with one of the Tory cronies at the helm of this. She had no comparable experience in this field. It failed to get this underway in anything like an acceptable manner. The figures were abysmal and the tracing of contacts was a disaster. It did improve but has never operated with anything like the success rate of comparable schemes elsewhere. The same Tory crony is in charge of this despite appalling failures all the way through.

Quarantine arrangements were put into place in the early days in most countries but the UK has only started to have a system with strict isolation of incomers from February 2021. Even now, it only covers certain countries on the "red list". The borders could have been closed in March 2020.

The first lockdown was delayed and the government failed to take action on this when it became clear it would be essential to do so. It was far too late and lives were lost as a consequence. Later lockdowns were delayed similarly.

The elderly were discharged from hospital with Covid 19 and put in care homes where it spread and killed many of the residents.

The Eat out to Help Out scheme may have been popular but it helped to spread the virus with the numbers of people eating indoors.

I could go on but you get the picture. It isn't all due to non compliance with the Covid regulations on the part of the British public.

Helig

[SteveH]

About one year ago I posted the news that we were busing the holiday makers arriving from the infected area of north Italy, from Brize
Norton to arrow park Hospital, Liverpool, at that time I thought it strange, I always thought infectious people were quarantined at the
point of infection, an example being ships not allowed by law, to dock, and had to anchor offshore, and today we learn that there are cases of the Brazilian variant in the UK .........."The three Scottish residents had flown to north-east Scotland from Brazil via Paris and London, "  which makes a mockery of the above statement ........"THERE are “definite lessons to learn” one year on from Wales’s first case of coronavirus, the country’s Health Minister has said, Vaughan Gething said the country would “definitely have done things differently” if it had the knowledge about Covid-19 that is available now................................... 

BBC report ....Covid-19: Brazil 'variant of concern' detected in UK
A coronavirus "variant of concern" first detected in Brazil has now been found in the UK.
Three cases have been detected in England and separately three in Scotland.
In England, officials are still trying to track down one of those who tested positive for the new variant.

The three Scottish residents had flown to north-east Scotland from Brazil via Paris and London, the Scottish government said.

Experts believe this variant (P1) - first detected in travellers to Japan from Manaus in northern Brazil in January - could be more contagious.

cont  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56233038

[Hugo]

Businessman 'strip searched' by cops after arrest for family lockdown trip to buy ice cream
Rhos on Sea man detained after he refused to give his name to officers when he went with wife and son to Talacre for 'mental break' as footage of arrest shared by MS

When I read this article my first thoughts were unprintable.   We are all in the same position and what does he not understand about "you must stay at home" he could easily have had a walk down Rhos Promenade and bought an ice cream there.
The person concerned should have shown more respect for the Police and I'm surprised that he was not fined for breaking Covid rules

Mr McEvoy MS, the leader of the Propel party, called for the arresting officers to be suspended and for a full investigation to be launched.   What an idiotic thing to say after an incident with a law breaker

https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/businessman-strip-searched-cops-after-19938639

[SteveH]

I completely agree with your comments, also I think the police "treat as they find" if you want to be bolshie, then accept the consequences .