‘Hackney still not past Omicron peak,’ warn local medics
Free testing for Covid ended earlier this month
“Whilst we hate to say it, Covid has still not gone away”, local doctors have warned.
Dr Ellen Schwartz, a consultant in public health for the City of London and Hackney, said that the area has not yet passed the peak in infections.
Estimates suggest that in last week there were 23,000 people with Covid in Hackney and 800 in the City.
Sadly, one more person died in the first week of April, taking the total number of deaths in Hackney to 624, with 14 in the City.
In the week ending 19 April, there were 21 patients with Covid at Homerton Hospital – none of them on ventilators.
Dr Schwartz cautioned that because there is no longer local testing, the infection data is based on figures for City, Hackney and Islington and information from the Office of National Statistics.
The changes are part of the government’s ‘Living with Covid’ strategy.
Schwartz told a public health meeting today that 8.2 per cent of local residents are estimated to have had the virus last week, compared with 7.6 per cent across the whole of London.
She stressed that the vaccination programme is continuing to get as many people protected from the virus as possible.
According to the latest figures, 64 per cent of people in City and Hackney have had one jab, 59 per cent have had two, and 40 per cent have been triple vaccinated.
Residents are advised to keep following the five key messages of hands, face, space, ventilate and vaccinate.
Details of vaccination centres and events can be found here: