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Gloucestershire Business News

Mandatory mask wearing reintroduced at Gloucestershire hospitals

Surging Covid cases means mandatory mask wearing has been reintroduced at Gloucestershire hospitals.

The omicron wave saw cases in the county rise by 39 percent during the two weeks to July 1, according to figures from Inform Gloucestershire . They leapt from 1,231 up to 1,711 which equates to a rate of 267 per 100,000 members of the population.

Cases in England rose 26.5 per cent in the same period, a rate of 246 per 100,000 people.

Around 2.3m people in the UK had coronavirus in the week ending 24 June with the fast-spreading subvariants of omicron - called BA.4 and BA.5 - driving some of the new infections, according to the ONS.

Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said on Monday the reintroduction of masks was due to "increasing and rapidly rising cases of COVID-19 in the community".

All patients, colleagues and visitors to Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, Cheltenham General Hospital and Stroud Maternity Unit will be required to wear a type IIR surgical mask at all times except when eating and drinking.

In the House Of Commons on Tuesday, Boris Johnson said hospital admissions here were doubling around every 9 days, with more than 15,000 Covid patients in hospital in England.

He said: "We are experiencing the fastest growth in Covid cases that we have ever known, with over 218,000 cases reported yesterday, although that included some delayed reporting.

"And potentially of greatest concern, case rates are now rapidly rising among the older and more vulnerable, including doubling every week among those over 60, with the obvious risk that this will continue to increase the pressures on our NHS."

It is now giving people the spring vaccination booster at a rate of 900,000 a day to try and deal with the surge.

Mr Johnson advised people in England to carry on working from home whenever they can, wear face coverings on public transport and in most indoor public places, and take a test before going to high risk venues or meeting the elderly or vulnerable.

However, with the Prime Minister having been finally forced to step down this week is it unclear who will now lead the charge against the new wave of cases.

France, Spain, Greece and Germany are all reporting increases in cases and many are also seeing a rise in holidaymakers from the UK this summer which could have a knock-on effect here.

Punchline says: "There is now a power vacuum in government so who will make the decisions to buy the vaccines we need? It's a worry because what we need right now is stable, decisive leadership."

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