Covid outbreak at Newcastle hotel 'satisfactorily reducing'

The hotel at Newcastle Airport is currently being used to house asylum seekers

An outbreak of Covid at a Newcastle hotel which led to a spike in local figures is under control, health chiefs have confirmed.

The Novotel at the airport, which is currently being used to house asylum seekers, recorded 36 cases among staff and residents in the week to 2 April.

It was the reason the city had England's second highest week-on-week rise in infection rates.

Latest testing now shows cases have "satisfactorily reduced".

The Local Democracy Reporting Service said Prof Eugene Milne, Newcastle's public health director, was asked about the outbreak at a meeting of the city council's health scrutiny committee on Thursday.

He said: "We had two outbreak control team meetings, there has been significant work on the site and we are cooperating with Mears (which is operating the facility for asylum seekers), the Home Office, the police and Public Health England.

"It looks controlled to me at the moment, the numbers I'm seeing ... it looks as if that is satisfactorily reducing now."

In response to a question from Blakelaw councillor Oskar Avery, he added that the outbreak was unlikely to raise issues for other hotels as they reopen post-lockdown, but "does have implications for shared residential accommodation that we will need to think about in terms of outbreak control as we progress".

In the week to 2 April, Newcastle's weekly Covid infection rate jumped from 41.6 to 58.8 cases per 100,000 people compared to the previous seven days.

This was attributed solely to the hotel outbreak, as opposed to a more widespread increase in cases, and figures released on Thursday show the city's infection rate has fallen back to 42 per 100,000.

That figure is slightly above the average of 35 per 100,00 across the North East, and 30 across England.