Council leader praises 'enormous amount of diligence and sacrifices' made by YOU during lockdown

He also spoke of his huge pride in the work being done to secure the vaccinations of residents
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The leader of Hertfordshire County Council has paid tribute to the “enormous amount of diligence and sacrifices” made by residents across the county during the current lockdown.

Addressing the county’s Cabinet meeting on Monday (February 22) councillor David Williams also spoke of his huge pride in the work being done to secure the vaccinations of residents.

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Councillor Williams, who is chairman of the Cabinet, said he wanted to mention the council’s response and the impact on the county since lockdown. He addressed the meeting as it discussed the authority’s response to Covid-19.

Council leader, cllr David William (C) Hertfordshire County Council. Photography by Pete StevensCouncil leader, cllr David William (C) Hertfordshire County Council. Photography by Pete Stevens
Council leader, cllr David William (C) Hertfordshire County Council. Photography by Pete Stevens

He said: “Driven by the Kent variant, the Herts Coronavirus incident rate peaked at 910 cases per 100,000 population per seven days on the 4th of January. As at the seven days to the 16th of February, this rate has fallen to 100.5.

“So this represents an enormous amount of diligence and sacrifices on the part of Hertfordshire’s residents, employers and the public sector and the voluntary and community services.

“I really must express my thanks to everybody who has contributed to this effort to bring down the incidence rate and indeed then the sacrifices that people have made over this period.

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“One important initiative was the introduction of rapid testing on 20th of January. I visited the site at the Healthy Hub at the Gordon Craig Theatre in Stevenage on Thursday (February 18) where one of these sites is available.

“And this is really important now for those people who are not symptomatic with Coronavirus but, nevertheless, their work takes them out into the community and they are unable to stay at home during that period during the working day. And so there is a real wish that this becomes part of their regular routine to get rapid tests.

“The other thing I wanted to highlight is the work to address surge testing in response to a case of the South African variant being found in the EN10 area. There was a massive response to address this and to provide a surge in testing.

“It was a phenomenal response of trying to contain any incidence of the South African variant.

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“The final thing I just want to touch upon, work has been done to support the clinically extremely vulnerable during lockdown. And as we look forward now we know the government is going to be redefining those who should be considered extremely vulnerable.

“It’s likely, our expectation is, the cohort of such residents will grow by about 12,000 over the coming weeks. And there’s an important requirement to respond to that as best we can.”

Speaking of the progress being made on vaccinations in the county, cllr Williams said: “This has been an absolutely huge effort which the public sector across Hertfordshire has been very much involved in.

"And I am hugely proud of the work that is being done in order to secure the vaccinations of our residents in cohorts 1-4 and as we look forwards now, we will see our residents in 5-9 vaccinated over the coming months.”

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A report to the Cabinet stated that £61million of non-conditional funding to support the pandemic response has been allocated. The authority is also expecting to receive £8million of compensation for lost income for the year. This creates a Covid-19 funding pot of £69million for 2020/21.

A finance update was provided by councillor Ralph Sangster, chairman of the Resources and Performance Cabinet Panel, who said: “The financial deficit between costs and receipts is now just around £4.5million with costs around £74million.

"The Covid costs for 2022, the proposal is to be covered by the government’s announcement of a £1.5b grant for local government of which Herts County Council will be receiving some £21million.

“We’re proposing to carry that forward into next year to establish a £30million fund in support of Covid-related costs in the 2021/22 period. So we are well placed to respond to the costs which are going to be reasonably significant into the next year.”