COVID Control Plans escalated to Red+

Newcastle City Council has raised its COVID Control position to Red+ and will publish a Daily Dashboard which will show the latest number of positive cases across the city.  

The move comes following a continued rise in the number of cases in the city, with NEWCASTLE having one of the highest rates in the country at 235 per 100,000.

The new Daily COVID Dashboard will be published at 4pm on the City Council’s website and social media channels.

The Dashboard will crunch the numbers of local and national data provided by Public Health England and ONS to show the number of positive cases over the last week and a clear indication of the trend in transmission.

The artwork will show the number of new cases over the past 7 days, a comparative figure to the week prior and the rate of cases per 100,000 in Newcastle, the North East and nationally.

The decision to publish the data comes as Newcastle City Council officially raises its COVID Control Plan to Red+ which will ramp up the partnership working across city, especially in the different settings and will coordinate a consistent approach across the region.

In response to the local restrictions and ongoing spike in cases the Northumbria Local Resilience Forum, which includes Northumbria Police, both Universities and NHS partners, has declared a major incident and will step up their coordination of inter-agency work.

Councillor Irim Ali, cabinet member for Public Health and Neighbourhoods said,

“The continuing rise in cases across Newcastle is alarming, we must all do our bit to prevent the virus spreading further and to flatten the curve.

“Our COVID Control Plans show the strength of the partnerships in our city and all services will continue to provide support to businesses, communities and our residents, however we must all play our part in battling the virus.

“It is vital now that everyone follows the guidance and especially the local restrictions that have been in place for a week now. I know this is difficult, and many of our communities have already sacrificed so much, but if we do not unify as one city we face the very real risk of the virus taking over.

“The additional measures that could be introduced as part of a full Local Lockdown would be catastrophic for our city, our businesses and our communities. I am urging everyone to do your bit.”

On 18^th September new local restrictions were introduced across the North East. Leaders of seven regional authorities wrote directly to the Government requesting the additional support the prevent further spreading of the virus.

The localised measures are in place on top of the national measures announced by the Prime Minister on Tuesday 22^nd September.

For the latest guidance, information about support available in Newcastle and the Daily Dashboard visit www.newcastle.gov.uk/coronavirus.