Coronavirus column by Prof Dominic Harrison, Director of Health and Wellbeing Blackburn with Darwen

THE good news is that it looks like the reported Covid Omicron case rate peaked in parts of Pennine Lancashire at or around January 5.

There is some scepticism as to whether the reported case rate now accurately reflects the actual rate of infection as testing rules, access to tests and case reporting behaviours have changed.

However, for Blackburn with Darwen, the positivity rate (the numbers of those testing who confirm Covid positive) has also fallen from the 6th January – albeit from a very high level of over 40%. This is an additional indication that actual case rates are indeed falling.

Covid hospitalisation rates at East Lancashire Hospitals Trust were at 161 on the 17th January. These appear to be plateauing, albeit with still significant rises and falls day on day. Deaths have yet to show a similar decline, although there is always a gap between cases, hospitalisations and deaths.

Vaccination rates in January continue to rise – but at a much slower rate than in previous months. The first ‘drive through’ vaccination site in Lancashire at Blackburn Rovers is doing a great job with many not previously vaccinated now coming forward for their first jab.

It was always obvious that the current Plan B measures would not affect every local authority area equally. The Office of National Statistics review of working from home in 2020 had already demonstrated that whilst many southern and metropolitan city areas had up to 75% of the employed workforce who could work from home, areas like Pennine Lancashire had up to 75% of its workforce who could not.

During Plan B restrictions, most workers in Pennine Lancashire have been out in front line work, keeping society going, but exposed every day to higher rates of circulating virus.

That inequality in exposure is now very clear in the confirmed Covid case rate data of the 12th January. Having been below the English and North West regional average case rate from August 2021 to December 2021, Blackburn with Darwen is now 12th in the national league table, Blackpool is 14th, Burnley 15th, Hyndburn 16th and Pendle 17th.

The Covid risks in Pennine Lancashire are therefore currently higher than the national average. Pennine Lancashire GPs and East Lancashire Hospitals Trust can expect a prolonged higher impact of the current Omicron wave than the UK average.

This will place an additional post-Covid burden on both our residents and our local health and care system. We will have longer waiting lists for treatment, which will take longer to fix.

Pennine Lancashire residents have contributed more than UK average to keeping the country running at every stage of the pandemic, by being out in front line exposed work - in food production, transport, health and social care and critical infrastructure maintenance.

This has meant we have been exposed to higher transmission risks, hospitalisations and deaths, higher impacts from lockdowns, greater impacts on the health and care system and a more severe economic impact.

The government has recently promised both a Levelling-up White Paper and extra resources for the NHS to address waiting lists. These are intended to address both long standing structural inequality and the unequal pandemic impacts.

Let’s hope the government base any allocations of funding from these policies on a true and fair assessment of what is really needed to give every UK citizen equal life chances.