Chesterfield Royal Hospital gives coronavirus update

At 10am on Monday, staff were looking after 17 patients with Covid-19 – five of whom were described as being in a critical condition.

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In total, the trust has recorded 436 deaths linked to coronavirus, and condolences have been paid to their loved ones.

Chesterfield Royal Hospital spokesperson Simon Towers said: “The number of positive cases of Covid-19 has continued to fall at the trust which is a very pleasing trend and reflects the national picture.

“However, we are still at the start of national efforts to gradually exit lockdown and we still have a number of people in our care who are critically ill with Covid-19.

“Now is not the time to stop doing the things that have got us to this point, so we would urge everyone to continue to follow the very latest Government guidelines and safety measures to protect our services and carry on driving down those numbers.”

‘The virus isn’t going to go away’

Looking ahead to the autumn, Professor Sir Ian Diamond, head of the Office for National Statistics (ONS), has said he has ‘no doubt’ that further waves of Covid-19 infections will occur then.

The UK’s national statistician described the impact of the coronavirus vaccine roll-out as ‘wonderful’ – but warned people ‘need to recognise that this is a virus that isn’t going to go away’.

His comments come after England’s chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, said last week that there were still risks to reopening society and that the UK will experience another surge of cases.

He said: “We hope it doesn’t happen soon – it might, for example, happen later in the summer if we open up gradually or because of the seasonal effect it might happen over the next autumn and winter.

“All the modelling suggests there is going to be a further surge and that will find the people who either have not been vaccinated or where the vaccine has not worked.

“Some of them will end up in hospital and sadly some of them will go on to die,” he added.

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