Sheffield has NOT seen peak of Covid-19 deaths as hospitals remain ‘exceptionally busy’

Greg Fell, Sheffield Council’s director of public health, said in his latest update that the city’s Covid-19 infection rate is coming down and is one of the lowest in Yorkshire and Humber but remains ‘far too high for complacency’.

And he said that the lag between new cases, people becoming poorly enough to be admitted to hospital and then ending up in intensive care meant more deaths were likely.

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"We haven’t yet seen the peak of deaths. There have been 81 deaths where Covid is mentioned on the death certificate since September 1,” he said.

"That’s continuing to rise and again that reflects the time lag between case onset or symptom onset through to death in a very small number of people, so I would continue to ask Sheffield to remain vigilant for some time to come.”

Mr Fell urged people to ‘stick with the programme’ by continuing to wash their hands, wear a face covering, keep their distance from others and limit the number of people with whom they have contact.

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All those things will contribute to less people being admitted to hospital and less people sadly dying,” he added.

In the update, recorded yesterday, Monday, November 16, but shared today, he said the R number was between 1.1 and 1.3 across the country, meaning that for every 100 people who get the virus, they will pass it on to between 110 and 130. He said it was important to get the R number below 1 as ‘that begins to shrink the epidemic really quite quickly’.

He said it was ‘probably the case’ that the growth in hospital activity is flattening’ but that hospitals remain ‘exceptionally busy’ compared with this time last year.

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The latest weekly coronavirus infection rate in Sheffield for the seven days to November 12 is 304.0 new cases per 100,000 people, which is down from 386.4 during the week ending on November 5.

There were another 10 Covid-19 deaths at hospitals across South Yorkshire announced today by NHS England, including one in Sheffield, five in Barnsley, three in Doncaster and Bassetlaw, and one in Rotherham.