'Why we make the decisions we do to fight pandemic in Northamptonshire': Health director's new column

Hi, my name is Lucy Wightman – I’m the director of Public Health for Northamptonshire and I’ve been lucky enough to be invited to write a weekly column about the current Covid-19 pandemic which I hope you’ll find both interesting and informative.

Since the first signs of the Covid-19 pandemic early this year, me and my public health team have been working tirelessly to understand, identify and curb the invisible enemy which we all know now as coronavirus.

We have worked closely with our friends and colleagues in the NHS and social care, Public Health England, our enforcement services in environmental health and the police, and with the national and local contact tracing teams to study the movements of the virus, learn more about how people interact and use local and national data to discover how the virus is passed on and what we can do to protect ourselves and prevent transmission.

We are all a little greyer in the hair (a lot in my case!) and furrowed in the brow than before, but we continue to work tirelessly to reduce the risk of Covid locally and save as many lives as we can.

I have made decisions this year which were perhaps unpopular at times, but have always done so using the latest available evidence and with the best intentions at heart.

At home I am also a mum, a wife, a sister and a daughter and so I do not under-estimate and am not protected from the impact some of those decisions have had on people’s family connections and mental health, but myself and all my colleagues have acted with the conviction and insight that what we were doing was necessary in a bid to protect as many as possible, especially the most vulnerable – that is my legal duty to you all.

As I said, I am really pleased to be able to talk to you directly every week through this newspaper column and I want to take the opportunity not just to update you on the latest Covid rates and challenges, but also to talk about the positive things that Covid has created – increased communication between health and social care services providing new ways to ensure access to care, innovation to allow businesses and other important day-to-day activities such as teaching to continue, and an increased sense of community and civic responsibility where colleagues, neighbours and even people who were strangers only a matter of months ago help each

other when Covid causes issues.

Despite all of the doom and gloom, these things make me smile and we should all be proud of our resilience and ingenuity.

However, this week I’m afraid the data does not look good. There was more than a 50 per cent increase in the numbers of residents

testing positive with coronavirus last week compared to the week before, and there will likely be a further time lag before we see the

impact of the national

lockdown.

Worryingly, we are also seeing larger numbers of people over the age of 60 presenting with the virus.

Among adults, the risk for severe illness from Covid-19 increases with age, with older adults at highest risk. Severe illness means that the person with Covid-19 may require hospitalisation, intensive care, or a ventilator to help them breathe, or they may even die.

We must all do what we can to protect ourselves and each other and recognise that some are more at risk than others, so additional precautions should be taken to reduce this risk.

We are hearing reports of some people not wearing face masks and an increase in fines issued by the police.

I urge you to please make sure you protect yourself, your friends, family and fellow residents across the county and wear a mask, as well as continuing to wash your hands frequently and keep 2m apart from those not in your household or support bubble.

Such simple measures can make such a huge difference!

Stay safe and I look forward to speaking to you again next week.