Next winter is set to be ‘challenging’ for Trafford according to health experts, who expect covid will become a seasonal illness.
Pressure on the borough’s NHS and social care system also remains ‘significant’ according to health workers as the residual impact of covid continues.
Plans for living alongside covid-19 into the future are being developed for the borough and Helen Gollins, acting Director for Public Health, gave Trafford council an update on the current coronavirus situation this morning (Wednesday February 9).
She said: “I’m sorry to say this but I think that next winter is likely to be another challenging winter for us, but at least we’ve got the next six to nine months to really think ahead about how we pull the system together and add the additional pressures that covid will bring into our planning.”
The current systems in place for Trafford, such as the outbreak hub and public health team support with PPE, vaccination and testing, are set to remain in place for at least another 12 months.
Ms Gollins said: “We’ve reviewed what we need for the next year. We will still have an offer in Trafford because we know that covid isn’t going to go away and it’s about how we adapt our systems for our residents to live safely with covid.
“What we have heard from our colleagues in adult social care and the NHS is that the pressures are still significant for our services, so we must be mindful that the impact that covid has had on our system has been significant.”
Ms Gollins explained improving vaccination rates across Trafford is going to be ‘absolutely crucial’ for the borough going forward as covid is likely to become a seasonal illness.
She added that if things continue ‘as they are’ through spring and summer, the borough will be in a ‘reasonably stable’ position – but the increases that are expected to come in covid rates in autumn and winter will have to be carefully managed.
Although Trafford’s covid-19 rates are still currently higher than health bosses are happy with, Ms Gollins explained the borough is in a much better position now.
She said: “It’s a real relief to see the rates continuing to decline. They’re not declining at the speed that we would hope and it’s unlikely that they are going to fall away at any particular pace.”
The borough’s current infection rate as of the week ending Friday February 14 is 582.1 cases per 100,000 population – 1,383 positive cases of covid were confirmed in the borough that same week.
The week before the rate stood at 813 cases per 100,000 people.
However, while the borough’s over-60s’ rate is still declining, Ms Gollins said this isn’t declining at the rate that public health would have hoped for – it currently stands at 335 per 100,000 population.
The week prior to that the over-60s’ rate stood at 368 per 100,000.
Ms Gollins explained that the infection rates in all of Trafford’s age groups are declining, which she welcomed as good news – particularly in the borough’s school age population which saw spikes in rates after the Christmas break.
In terms of the spread of the virus across the borough, Broadheath currently has the highest infection rate of any Trafford ward.
Hale Central comes next, then Village ward and Ashton on Mersey.
Partington has seen consistently high infection rates throughout the pandemic and has become a focus of public health efforts recently.
The north and west of the borough are currently seeing the highest re-infection rates (testing positive for the second time with covid after 90 days of a previous positive test).
Trafford currently has the third highest infection rate of all Greater Manchester boroughs.
Hospital admissions for covid across Greater Manchester continue to decline, the number of people in hospital with covid who require a ventilator has also declined and the number of covid deaths in Trafford remains low.
