Your questions answered
Care home data
As of Wednesday 22 April 2020 GCC had been notified of 55 care homes where there were more than one suspected case of Covid-19*. 37 of these settings had at least one lab confirmed case of Covid-19. Table 1 shows the breakdown of notifications by district level, with the most notifications occurring in Cheltenham and Gloucester, which reflects the fact these districts have the greatest number of care homes.
Based on Public Health England notifications the number of possible and/or confirmed cases was 236** across all care settings. Table 2 shows the breakdown by district with Gloucester and Cheltenham reporting the most cases.
Sadly there have been 50 deaths of care home residents who were suspected to have Covid-19 (Table 3) however we do not have information at this time as to whether Covid-19 was a contributory factor in each of these deaths.
For confidentiality reasons, more detail in relation to individual cases or specific care homes will not be provided.
Table 1: Notifications of Covid-19 in care home settings, by district
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Total notifications of Covid-19 at care home settings
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Settings with at least 1 laboratory confirmed case of Covid-19
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Cheltenham
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16
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13
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Cotswold
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6
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2
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Forest of Dean
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4
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1
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Gloucester
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15
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11
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Stroud
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6
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4
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Tewkesbury
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8
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6
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Gloucestershire
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55
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37
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Table 2: Number of possible and probable cases of Covid-19, by district
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Total number of possible and probable cases of Covid-19
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Cheltenham
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64
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Cotswold
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23
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Forest of Dean
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9
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Gloucester
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76
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Stroud
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24
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Tewkesbury
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40
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Gloucestershire
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236
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Table 3: Deaths of care home residents who were suspected to have Covid-19, by district ***
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Deaths of care home residents who were suspected to have Covid-19
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Cheltenham
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22
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Cotswold
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<5
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Forest of Dean
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<5
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Gloucester
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6
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Stroud
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7
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Tewkesbury
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11
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Gloucestershire
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49
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IMPORTANT:
The data provided is not a complete picture of all social care settings in the county, it only reflects the position in relation to cases of Covid-19 that the council has been notified of in settings in which they have customers, up to and including 17 April. These figures will form part of future data that will be published by the ONS, they are not additional. More detail in relation to cases or locations will not be provided as GCC do not receive details of each individual suspected or confirmed case.
* Notifications of settings where there are one or more cases of suspected or confirmed Covid-19 are reported to GCC by Public Health England (PHE).
** GCC do not receive details of each individual suspected or confirmed case and this is a snapshot of information received at the time of notification. Some of these cases may have gone onto test negative for Covid-19, tested positive for another respiratory illness, or have recovered from Covid-19. There may be more cases than those notified to GCC.
***This data is based on a snapshot of numbers of possible deaths at the time GCC is informed of the care home outbreak and may not be representative of all deaths relating to individuals with suspected CoVID-19 in care homes. The Office of National Statistics have recently released deaths registrations data by district and setting. This data is more accurate and will soon replace the above figures.
Are GCC and the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) talking to local businesses or the university?
GCC and the LEP have good working relationships with local universities and businesses. We have recently been given a further single point of contact for the universities in Gloucestershire that our deputy director of public health will follow up in the coming days. The University of Gloucestershire dial into the Local Resilience Forum Tactical Co-ordination Group meetings, which happen twice a week to stay up-to-date with local developments.
The LEP is actively engaging with businesses. There is a considerable amount of information on their website about what they are doing - see here for more information.
Are the children at schools still getting food?
All children currently attending schools are provided with free school meals.
The children who are in schools are the children of key workers, vulnerable children and children with Education Health and Care Assessments and Plans (EHCPs). There are approx. 1500 children in the county’s schools currently.
Schools are also responsible for providing free school meals for all eligible children who currently remain at home, either through the provision of lunch packs, food hampers or vouchers. Here is a recent press release with details of the provision.
If you know of a household where income has changed recently, they can check if their child is now eligible for Free School Meals. Please pass on our website details where they can apply online.
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