'No one should drop their guard' - Bath-based disease expert's warning after new virus spike

A disease control expert has expressed his concern over the partial closure of a Somerset hospital and says plans to re-open schools and businesses are "premature".

Weston General Hospital stopped accepting new patients on bank holiday Monday due to its “high number of patients with coronavirus”.

An NHS worker revealed the hospital had at least 64 coronavirus patients and that 40% of staff who had been tested had also tested positive for the virus.

Although the NHS worker, who wanted to remain anonymous, thought a surge in tourists visiting Weston's beaches could be to blame for the surge in cases, Dr Bharat Pankhania said other factors, not only VE Day, could be at play.

"With respect to a new increase in the number of cases, and looking to the future, it is important to look at matters which will lead to an increase in the number of cases, thus it is important to look beyond VE Day," said Dr Pankhania, a former consultant in communicable disease control with more than 20 years’ experience in infectious diseases.

"While this celebration may have caused additional cases, the dropping of the cautionary guard after several weeks of the lockdown will also cause transmission of infection to occur.

"As regards the Weston General Hospital, the news that a considerable percentage of nursing staff are off sick having tested positive for COVID-19 is of much concern.

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"To have many cases in one workplace, especially a clinical workplace, implies concerns about transmission of infection amongst both staff and patients at the hospital.

He added: "Whilst we have high levels of the virus circulating in the community, it is easier for people to get infected.

"Close contact with infected people is the common route for infection, this is usually indoors, thus whilst a crowded beach may also be a source of infection it is much easier to get infected indoors especially in crowded places.

"There may have been a gradual lowering of caution over a prolonged period of time, especially if the messages have not been reinforced, when people lower their guard and there is considerable circulation of the virus in the community it is inevitable that people will get infected."

In the past week, there has been a growing trend where more than 50 per cent of the 60 COVID-19 cases in the county have come from North Somerset.

Dr Bharat Pankhania, a Bath councillor who represents Combe Down, said the number of confirmed cases nationally needed to be in the hundreds, not thousands, before schools and businesses should re-open.

"There needs to be a continued message from the government saying the virus is still in circulation and therefore people must exercise caution," said Dr Pankhania, a senior clinical lecturer in communicable disease at The University of Exeter.

"Unfortunately, all the indicators show that the virus has not gone away, it is still in circulation.

"With the high number (about 2,500) of daily new case numbers, the absence of easy testing, contact tracing, plus the uncertainty over whether children are likely to cause infections or not, I think that the reopening of schools and other businesses is premature.

"It is important to be aware that the COVID-19 virus infections can still overwhelm the health care system.

"At this stage no one should drop their guard.

"The number of confirmed cases is around 2,500 each day.

"The true number of daily cases is likely to be much higher than this figure as the testing system is not easy to use, it is very centralised and not everyone can get tested.

"Furthermore, in 30% of cases, the test results are false negative, thus the burden of infection in the UK is still very high.

"If and when the case numbers drop, with extensive testing to their low hundreds, over a prolonged, minimum of 14 days, it will give us an indicator that community virus activity is now low and at this stage we can slowly and carefully try and lift the lockdown."

Many schools are set to re-open on June 1 and some businesses will follow suit on June 15.