Agenda item

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on 21 July 2020.

Resolved

The minutes of the meeting held on 21 July 2020 were confirmed and

would be signed at the earliest opportunity.

The Director of Public Health took the opportunity to inform the Board of what

had been done by Public Health Dorset (PHD) - in partnership with other

heath bodies GP’s; Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group; the NHS,

emergency services; and Dorset and BCP Councils - to address and manage

the Coronavirus pandemic within Dorset over recent months.

The Board was given a presentation outlining the local outbreak

management plans, how they were being applied and managed and what was

being done in practice, along with other associated information pertaining to

the pandemic, to put what PHD was doing – and had done - in some context. A copy of the presentation is incorporated in these minutes at minute 67.

Public Health Dorset considered that the reduction seen in Covid-19 infection rates was pleasing to see and reflected the efforts made and the means by which this was done. Rural Dorset’s seven-day figures were currently just under 100 cases per 100,000 and the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole area, just under 200.

Whilst the increase in rates over the past two to three weeks had been concerning, the trend being now seen showed that compliance with the interventions put in place had achieved some considerable success.

Nevertheless, it was of critical importance that compliance with the lockdown rules was maintained to ensure that trend continued and that there should be no place for complacency, or this would contribute to this tend being reversed. Household transmission remained the most significant exposure setting, followed by visiting friends and family.

The local rise in infection rates had coincided with the period when there were local limitations in accessing a test as resources were focused on the north of the country which needed more attention.

The Board were told that many of the recently reported cases were amongst younger people (16-29), although there had been evidence of a spread to over 65’s -the group more likely to need medical help in hospital.

The Director said there unfortunately was little which could be done about hospital admission cases over the upcoming couple of weeks because this was already determined by the infection rate circulating already within the community.

It was still hoped that when lockdown ended, the county could resume on the minimum Covid-19 restrictions given how this was being managed and the results being seen from this and there were advanced plans being developed to design a local track and trace system to manage the pandemic in helping to keep local figures down.

The Board expressed its appreciation for what the whole Public Health Dorset team had done in addressing the Covid-19 pandemic and commented that this was a credit to the team, to local councils and their partners and to the residents of Dorset. They commented that this demonstrated the importance of our public health service and that Dorset and its residents were benefitting from the robust response being shown.  They hoped this positive response could be maintained and improved upon and looked forward to receiving a further update at their February meeting.