The following urgent briefing on Covid was provided to councillors by Somerset County Council’s Public Health Team:

‘You will have noted from the Covid dashboard that the case rate in Mendip is still the highest in the county.  The highest rates are in the greater Frome area but significantly high in other MSOAs within Mendip.

In common with other parts of the county, most cases being reported at the moment have been in school age children, and there have been several schools and colleges in the Frome area with high numbers of cases.  The case rate has dropped off slightly recently, this could be attributed to the half term break.

Additionally, each District in Somerset will have likely seen many cases of Covid-19 receive a false negative PCR test result as a result of the recent lab testing issue and will have come out of self-isolation and continued to spread Covid-19 within our schools and communities through no fault of their own.

Therefore, with several different factors influencing infection rates currently, it is difficult to predict what position we will be in after the half term.

Balancing the need to keep students in education with the need to keep infection rates under control has been really challenging, but we have pulled together well locally to do our best for Somerset children and young people.

To help schools with reviewing their plans, the SCC Public Health team have conducted individual risk assessments and advised educational settings on specific additional actions they can implement for the 14 days post half term. Each school has received a letter from the Director of Public Health, giving public health advice on the levels of control measures to be in place post half term. 

National policy is to maximise the number of children in face-to-face education or childcare and minimise any disruption in a way that best manages the Covid-19 risk, recognising that the risk of serious illness from Covid in children is very rare.

Getting the vaccine will help to protect children and young people against Covid-19. Whilst most children usually have mild illness, they can pass on their infection to others in their family and those they come into contact with. Getting vaccinated will also help to reduce the chance of disruption to their education from Covid-19.

This month, NHS Opened Online Covid-19 Vaccination Bookings For 12-15 Year Olds.  This means parents are now able to book Covid-19 vaccinations online for their 12-15 year old children.  People will be able to go online and check the National Booking Service to see if their local site has appointments to vaccinate children and young people, as the NHS Covid-19 vaccination programme continues at pace.

The booking service will provide an additional option for parents to book a vaccine for their child, alongside the schools programme which has already vaccinated nearly half a million young people and visited thousands of schools.

Through our communications, we continue to remind staff, students and pupils to test twice weekly at home with LFD kits over the half term period, as well as testing at home the evening before they return to their educational setting.  This will be key to ensuring that students start back in the best way possible.

The basics of reducing transmission have not changed.  Minimise close social contacts, meet outside if you can, well ventilated inside if not, and wear face coverings in crowded indoor spaces.   

Our message is clear: We can all do something to help stop the spread of Covid-19.‘ 

Partnership Manager, Public Health,
Somerset County Council

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