A pint and a side order of Covid-19 messaging on its way to Corby and Kettering

Kettering and Corby pubgoers will soon be receiving Covid-19 safety messages to their mobile phones in a bid to stop a rise in cases.

Both towns have seen an increase in people contracting Covid-19 in recent weeks, with fifty per cent of the new cases diagnosed last week being in the 20-29 age group according to as yet unreleased data information from the county’s local resilience cell.

Kettering and Corby, along with Wellingborough and Northampton, currently have additional Covid-19 safety measures in place, which include keeping to a two-meter distance, rather than the national standard of one metre and residents meeting people outside of their household in an outdoor space.

Now in an effort to get the safety message out to the 20-29 audience a new series of public health messaging will be rolled out.

At the county’s Covid-19 insight meeting this morning (Sept 4) PR consultant Sarah Newall said: “We continue to be intelligence-led in the communications cell and we are doing everything we can to reach the 20-29 age group, because they accounted for fifty percent of the new cases in Kettering and Corby last week.”

A giant screen conveying Corby and Kettering specific messaging will appear in both two centres this weekend and a geo locate system has also been commissioned that will send messages direct to people drinking in Corby and Kettering pubs when they open their browsers. Half a million messages for both towns have been commissioned.

The move comes after a staff member at the Samuel Lloyd pub in Corby tested positive.Speaking at the meeting Director of Public Health Lucy Wightman said data to be released this afternoon at the weekly press conference- which will give more in-depth analysis up until August 30th and show Corby’s rising cases.

However data is also released on a daily basis by the government, which means the data being explained each Friday is already many days behind.

She said: “This week’s data will see a significant change in the situation particularly in Corby. We have been monitoring Corby and Kettering for quite some time and the team have been working with environmental health and communications officers for quite some time having seen an increase in cases.

“That has been a slow insidious creep, but in the last week we have seen a significant spike in the numbers in Corby in particular. We are going through the Test and Trace process and able to pull out information about what is happening in this area so we have an understanding of what is driving it. The numbers of people are getting younger so we are looking at how we tailor our communications.”

Talking on a wider county level Lucy Wightman said: “We are seeing an increase in the number of active exposures. These are single cases where there has been exposure to contacts within that setting. An exposure would be considered where someone who worked in a public facing service became positive, because if they worked during the period in the run up to their positive diagnosis they may well have infected people that they provided the service to. We have seen exposure such as those in pubs, bars and coffee shops and care facilities.

“We are making sure we monitor those situations very closely and are looking to link any further cases that we may find in the area with those empires so we can declare an outbreak and follow up as required if necessary.”

Northamptonshire’s covid rates are still significantly above the national level, however Northampton- which had a major outbreak at a sandwich factory – is now seeing a drop in its rate.

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