SARS-COV2 or COVID-19 or coronavirus, makes no difference what name you give it, it is killing people and leaving others with long term helath issues.

It is easy to be complacent, after all, East Cambridgeshire has low levels of infection and low levels of death. The current active cases according to the Kings College App in the district are falling from over 200 last week, but that does not mean that mean that it is over:

Even more importaant is the wonderful news of positive news on a vaccine. But let’s not get too excited. The vaccine results still need a lot of work to prove effectiveness across all parts of the population and also need to be peer reviewed.

Let’s be positive and finally we have an exit strategy from this. The Government have 10 million doses coming to the UK and a further 30 milion have been ordered. The vaccine requires 2 doses per person – so that is 5 million who can be given the vaccine.

About 1.5m NHS workers and another 0.5m who are in private hospitals, GP practices, dentists and opticians. Approximately 1.3m people work in adult social care most of those being front line staff and about 0.4m people live in care homes and a total of about 3.5m clinically vulnerable people.

To cover those most at risk, this suggests we need to vaccines for almost 7 million people, or 14 million doses against the initial stock of 10 million.

It is going to take some time before any of these people are protected, longer to know how well it protects and the vast bulk of the population will not see a vaccine until late 2021, if at all.

This is not to be pessimistic, in fact, this is very encouraging but it highlights that we cannot relax. Over 500 people per day are dying in the UK from SARS-COV-2 and many more will die before there is widespread protection.

Please help protect others as well as yourself:

• Stay at Home
• Work from home if you can
• Only go out for exercise and essential shopping

When you do go out, remember to stay 2 metres apart and to use a mask which is essential when inside.

If you have symptoms of #coronavirus, you must self-isolate to protect those around you and book a test. You can book a test via the #NHSCOVID19app or online: https://nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/ You should also make your workplace aware as soon as possible.

Together we can stop COVID-19.

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