A greater proportion of unvaccinated people will end up in hospital, but as there are so few unvaccinated in the community, they don’t make up the bulk of inpatients, a meeting has heard.
Ian Brown, the chief officer for public health told Bedford Borough Council’s Local Outbreak Engagement Board yesterday (25 November), that he would describe the overall rate of Covid infections in the borough as “high but stable”.
He said: “We had 827 cases in the week up to November 19, and that hasn’t changed very much for the last few weeks.
“We have seen a slight reduction in our over-60s, which is really good news because obviously, they are at the highest risk of hospitalisation and serious illness.”
Mr Brown added that the number of inpatients in Bedford Hospital with Covid-19 has reduced “quite significantly “over the last ten days, from 64 to 32 cases on Wednesday (24 November).
“So that obviously represents a positive improvement locally,” he said.
“We are continuing to see a significant number of deaths involving Covid-19 every week, so another four deaths in the most recent week of ONS death registration data.
“Obviously as the situation in the hospital improves we hope that will have a knock-on effect to the situation in terms of Coviddeaths as well,” he added.
Cllr Wendy Rider (LibDems, Brickhill Ward) asked if the people in hospital were vaccinated or unvaccinated.
Mr Brown replied: “We know that roughly 75 per cent of the people in the hospital have been vaccinated, as in they have had two vaccinations.
“We don’t yet have information on booster vaccinations, but really that’s exactly what we’d expect because it’s a small proportion of a big number of people who have been vaccinated are being hospitalised.
“So you know when we got back to vaccination rates in our most vulnerable residents at 95 per cent then it only takes a small number of that 95 per cent to end up in hospital, unfortunately, when we have high case rates as we do at the moment.
“So a greater proportion of unvaccinated people will end up in hospital, but because now there are so few unvaccinated people in our communities they don’t make up the greater proportion who are actually in hospital if you see what I mean,” he said.
Mr Brown added that reduction in the number of Covid inpatients at Bedford Hospital was “really welcome news” because that was putting additional pressure on the hospital system.
by John Guinn
Local Democracy Reporter
