Covid-19: Hartlepool case rates 'persistently stuck'

Craig Blundred said it would be "challenging" to get rates down

Covid-19 rates in Hartlepool are becoming "persistently stuck", a health chief has warned.

Public health director Craig Blundred said it was "slightly concerning" the town's infection rate was not dropping below 100 cases per 100,000 people.

The weekly case rate has dropped from about 780 per 100,000 people in January to between 109 and 130.

"It's persistently holding at that level despite all of the things that we're doing," Mr Blundred said.

"I think it's going to be challenging to be able to get below that."

Infection rates in other parts of the North East had dropped "quite significantly", he added.

He added it was positive that children returning to school had not led to an increase in cases as some feared.

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Meanwhile health centre bosses in the town have been "inundated" with requests from residents under 50 asking when they could get their vaccination, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Dr Graham Trory said he had received inquiries from patients concerned about blood clots, after some countries halted their use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, but "not as many as we feared".

"Everybody was happy to accept that it was still a good thing to have the vaccine and nobody declined it," he said. 

"We've been inundated with people who are under 50 asking when is mine due, so I don't think there's going to be a huge turning it down of that age group."

Tees Valley Clinical Commissioning Group said it had received information from national health bodies that there was no link between the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab and blood clots.