Ealing Covid-19 Latest Update

Eric Leach from The Neighbours' Paper asks what is going on with testing locally

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Ealing Covid-19 Deaths

The Office of National Statistics (ONS) is probably the only reliable source of complete figures. It takes the ONS a few days to collect, collate and publicise the data. Searching the ONS web site is however not for the faint-hearted as there’s masses of data filed under all sorts of ONS codes.

Here are some data samples:

For the period 1 March 2020 to 17 April 2020:

+ 239 Covid-19 deaths in Ealing. This is the third highest figure amongst London’s 32 boroughs.

+ 9 confirmed Covid-19 deaths in West Ealing (ONS MSOA Ealing 028)

For the week of 17 April 2020 to 24 April 2020:

+ 47 Covid-19 deaths in Ealing

Ealing Residents at Risk as Many Go Back to Work on the Tube, the Train and the Bus

On 10 May 2020 The Prime Minister told a huge TV audience that he wanted those working in manufacturing and construction to go back to work. Anecdotally as from yesterday (11 May) many Ealing residents did so - travelling primarily on the London Underground. Physical distancing during rush hours is impossible in ticket foyers, lifts, corridors, platforms and carriages. These locations are fertile breeding grounds for Covid-19 infections. Ealing, with 15 tube stations, is particularly vulnerable for Covid-19 outbreak creation and outbreak continuance. Let’s also not forget that there are 11 Railway Stations in Ealing and 20 bus routes serving Ealing Broadway Station.

There is no law compelling passengers on public transport to wear masks or to stay 2 metres away from other passengers.

Ealing Joins 31 Other London Boroughs and Many Charities to Feed the Vulnerable

The food distribution charities the Felix Project, FareShare and City Harvest will work together to stock food hubs before the food is being distributed to local charities. The project is being co-ordinated by the Strategic Co-ordination Group (SCG), the body leading London’s response to the Covid-19 outbreaks, alongside boroughs and the new London Food Alliance.

SCG is a London Council’s initiative – see www.londoncouncils.gov.uk

More at:

www.thefelixproject.org

www.fareshare.org.uk

www.cityharvest.org.uk

Why Hasn’t Ealing Started Its Own Covid-19 Testing/Tracing/Isolating Initiatives?

Last month a group of retired healthcare workers in Sheffield launched a Covid-19 contact tracing project. It’s supervised by doctors and public health workers. On 30 April 2020 politicians in Hackney expressed their willingness for Hackney to be an early site for metropolitan contact tracing. The sooner Covid-19 testing/tracing/isolating initiatives begin in Ealing, the sooner we will reduce the Covid-19 case and death counts.

However, according to ‘The Guardian’ of 6 May 2020, Ealing GPs and Ealing Council have received no Covid-19 test results from the drive-through test centres. In fact none of the hundreds of thousands of test results obtained by privately run drive-through test centres have been shared with GPs or Local Authorities. Just what kind of madness is this?

As Allyson Pollock, Professor of Public Health, Newcastle University pointed out in ’The Observer’ on 26 April 2020, the national Covid-19 epidemic is not homogenous. It is made up of hundreds, if not thousands, of outbreaks around the country, each at a different stage. What is urgently needed are thousands of local test/trace/isolate initiatives.

The Ealing Covid-19 outbreaks have to be identified by testing and followed up by meticulous contact-tracing by local people with local knowledge, followed by stringent isolation.. Who might sensibly do this contact-tracing in Ealing and who might lead the effort? One obvious candidate to run this effort is Wendy Meredith, Interim Director of Public Health, Ealing Council. As for volunteers:

+ Ealing Council’s ‘Ealing Together’ apparently has 500 volunteers signed up

+ Ealing Community and Voluntary Service always has volunteers signed up

+ There must be hundreds (maybe thousands) of workers in Ealing ‘furloughed’ (on 80% of wages) who might lend a hand in June and possibly till the end of summer (on 60% of wages).

Clearly Ealing GPs, Ealing Hospital, community health, Ealing Clinical Commissioning Group (ECCG) and the 49 care/nursing homes in Ealing must be wired into these initiatives.

The Government ceased somewhat small scale Covid-19 test/trace/isolate initiatives on 12 March 2020. No official reason has been given for this, but there has been speculation about lack of resource being the culprit. An even more damning explanation might be the ‘following the science’ mantra – but sadly the ‘wrong’ science.

Government arguing about which Smartphone/Bluetooth App to adopt might be as relevant as arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. Future historians are likely to deliver harsh judgements on the Government’s culpability for 1,000s of unnecessary Covid-19 deaths. The lack of local Covid-19 test/trace/isolate initiatives in March, April and May 2020 may well be quoted as contributory factors in this slaughter of the innocents.

Who is Managing the Co-Ordinated Response to Covid-19 in Ealing?

In 2013 the Ealing Clinical Commissioning Group (ECCG) was established. Its statutory role is to commission (purchase) healthcare services in Ealing. It commissions all our 200 GPs at our 75 GP Practices, Ealing Hospital services, mental health and community healthcare services. Originally based in Greenford, it’s now formally based in Perceval House in central Ealing, but no doubt its staff are working at home. In 2018/19 ECCG ‘workforce benefits’ alone totalled £11.03 million.

Is the ECCG running Ealing’s healthcare response to Covid-19? Well it might be – but how would we know? The ECCG Governing Body hasn’t met in public (or perhaps at all) since 22 January 2020. Its Primary Care Commissioning Committee – which runs Primary Care purchasing in Ealing – has not met in public since 15 January 2020. No remote/virtual ‘public’ meetings are apparently planned for either committee.

Is Ealing Council running Ealing’s response to Covid-19? Apart from announcing service closures (and the occasional re-opening – see below) I can’t see any real leadership here from the Council. The Council Officers working from home are trying to keep Council business going. It ran its first virtual formal Council committee meeting using Microsoft MS Teams software on 28 April 2020. It was the meeting of the Scrutiny Review Panel 2 (Active Citizenship.) Hardly any member of the public knew it was happening at the time. However it was recorded and you can view it on the Council’s web site. I have viewed it and without real time access to the relevant documents it would have been hard to make sense of the proceedings, some of the sound is poor, some Councillors do not have cameras connected and the technology kept breaking down. The Chair made no attempt to provide contextual information for the public and no overview of what had been decided.

Greenford Tip to Re-Open on 18 May 2020

I suggest you don’t take your waste and recycling there next Monday as the length of the queue and the waiting involved will be considerable!

Very Full Agenda Rumoured For the Council’s First Covid-19 Constrained Virtual Planning Committee Meeting.

According to the Council’s web site the status of the 20 May 2020 Planning Committee meeting is ‘To Be Confirmed’. However rumour has it the meeting will take place virtually. At least 481 new homes in four Planning Applications could be green-lighted. This includes the application for 16/15/10 storied residential towers overlooking the Hoover building in Perivale. An older version of this application was thrown out at the 18 September 2019 Planning Committee meeting. Also on the agenda is the Planning Application for the Quatro Cement Works in Acton.

Eric Leach

12 May 2020

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