'Work with us', pleads East Northants health boss as Covid cases rise

An environmental health boss at the forefront of helping with the county’s coronavirus efforts has appealed to businesses and residents to ‘work with us’.

Mike Deacon from East Northants Council is the officer in charge of co-ordinating much of his local authority’s Covid efforts as his 30 strong team are involved with making sure businesses comply with regulations as well as issuing guidance, providing local intelligence and also getting involved with the local track and trace system.

As the number of cases is rising across the county – there were 178 new cases in Northants on Wednesday – Mike Deacon has appealed to people and businesses to adhere to the guidelines.

He said: “Work with us. We are there to support businesses and residents.

“On the whole we are finding that people are following the rules. But now there is a degree of community fatigue.

“Our challenge is cutting through the messages that have been laid before – it is a challenge.”

Since the pandemic began back in March there has been a series of different guidelines and instructions from government as the infection numbers have increased, receded and then risen again since August. More than 700 Northamptonshire residents have died with the virus and sadly deaths have started to rise again across the country.

In recent weeks the environmental health team has had to contend with the 10pm closing time imposed on pubs and officers go out on regular patrols to ensure businesses are following the rules to ensure public safety.

Enforcement so far has involved the Green Dragon pub in Higham Ferrers being given a formal warning and having stricter licensing conditions imposed after it failed to comply with social distancing rules. But Mike Deacon has warned enforcement may be stepped up if businesses do not comply.

He said one of the biggest challenges is keeping up with the stream of regulation update and guidance that is coming from central government.

East Northants Council’s environmental health department has one staff member dedicated solely to keeping up to date with the guidance and then sharing the information with neighbouring local authorities.

All councils across the county are working closely together to share information, practices and community intelligence and there is an agreement in place that they will provide resource support to each other in case of a major outbreak. Covid data comes down from Public Health England to the county’s public health team and is then shared with the different local authorities as well as police, schools and care homes.

So far the biggest outbreak in Northants has been at the Greencore factory which was linked to more than 300 cases in August.

The latest weekly update report circulated to the public (up until October 11) has the Oundle, Titchmarsh and Warmington as the county area with the second highest number of cases in the preceding 28 days.

However the environmental health boss says this is largely due to the geographical size of the area and there has not been specific outbreak or cluster. He says the recent East Northants cases are largely in the 10 to 19 age group.

Mike Deacon says the managing of the pandemic has had to be added to the other responsibilities such as fly-tipping enforcement, but says that dealing with health issues has always been part of the job.

He said: “We are taking it day by day. There has been a lot of learning gleaned from the first wave.”