Better spring ahead following dramatic drop in Covid hospitalisations in Dumfries and Galloway

A dramatic drop in Covid hospitalisations means that Dumfries and Galloway residents can expect a better spring this year.
That was the message this week from Jeff Ace, chief executive of the health board, who insisted that he is “cautiously optimistic” that the region has turned a corner in fighting the virus.
This week there are an average of 10 patients being treated for Covid in the Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary (DGRI), while the number was up to SEVEN times higher this time last year.
Speaking at yesterday’s bi-monthly health board meeting, Jeff said: “At the moment we are seeing in the community a gradual fall from a very high level in terms of positive tests.
“We are not seeing now significant numbers of individuals being hospitalised. We’re typically at 10-ish individuals in DGRI at any one time.
“To put that into context: January and February 2021 we were up into the 60s and 70s of Covid inpatients.
“So, the impact of the vaccination programme has been so significant in how we’ve managed to break that link between high community cases numbers and hospitalising patients.”
Just seven months ago, the health board chief publicly warned that NHS Dumfries and Galloway was in danger of reaching a “code black” level – an emergency state where overstretched medics have no more capacity and can only deal with the most critically-ill patients.
This was down to the enormous pressures put on the health service by Covid hospitalisations and shortages of staff due to self-isolation rules.
Mr Ace’s latest update on Monday was much more positive, although he admitted that current positive testing rates are still high compared to the beginning of the pandemic two years ago.
However, the impact of the vaccination programme, coupled with the weaker Omicron variant, has resulted in better outcomes and far fewer hospitalisations.
Mr Ace said: “We are potentially entering a quite positive phase of the pandemic where we will see things feel a little bit more normal.”
He added: “The trend is good, the link with hospitalisation has been broken by the vaccination programme, and our vaccination uptake is exceptionally high, so we’ve put ourselves in as positive a position as we can.
“Hopefully we are seeing the impact of that now in terms of far fewer numbers being hospitalised.
“It’s really tentative. Nobody’s got a really good track record of forecasting what’s coming next through the pandemic.
“But I think that cautious optimism that we have turned a bit of a corner.
“We are all looking forward to a slightly better spring than we’ve had previously for the last two years.”