Read the latest update from Cllr Courts, Leader of Solihull Council 

Thursday 18 February

With over 15 million now having received at least one dose of the vaccine our NHS vaccination programme has been nothing short of incredible. Well done to all the teams delivering this programme!

Our Director of Public Health is concerned that although the borough’s cases of infection are falling, there is still community transmission of the virus. As we are in lockdown it might be from those people who have to leave home to work. The strong advice now is that if you leave your house to go to work, please get a regular test. And that includes any essential voluntary work. We need you to get a test even if you don’t have symptoms, i.e. you are ‘asymptomatic’. That way we can identify the one in three people who have the virus, but don’t have any symptoms and may be unaware that they are spreading infection.

Read more here.

Read the latest message from Solihull’s Director of Public Health, Ruth Tennant

Friday 19 February

COVID infection figures in Solihull continue to fall, your efforts during the lockdown have contributed to a 24% reduction. However, that means the borough’s infection rate is still high at 184 per 100,000 infections, although much lower than in recent times.

This is good news, but it still means that each week, over 400 people in Solihull are catching COVID – roughly the same as in early December and also means that we still have a large number of very ill people in hospital. So, good signs of progress but more to do.

Read more here.

Rapid testing for those who have to leave home to work

During lockdown we are prioritising asymptomatic testing of anyone who needs to leave their house to go to work, including essential voluntary work, at our local testing sites.

You need to book an appointment to visit one of our sites to get a rapid COVID test. (No walk-in appointments are available).

The sites are:

• Tudor Grange Leisure Centre
  Blossomfield Road, B91 1NB. Mon-Fri 8am-5.30pm, Sat-Sun 10am-1.30pm
• North Solihull Sports Centre
  Conway Road, Solihull, B37 5LA. Mon-Fri 8am-5.30pm, Sat-Sun 10am-1.30pm

Book a test here.

1.7 million added to extremely vulnerable group

The government has announced that it is adding an extra 1.7 million to the 2.3 million people already on the list of people clinically vulnerable to COVID-19. This follows the adoption of a new model which takes into account factors beyond health.

The model uses patient data to identify those who might be at high risk and subsequently generated risk assessment results for these people.

Any person whose results in this new model were above the agreed threshold for high risk of severe illness from COVID-19 have been added to the Shielded Patient List in England.

For a complete update of changes to Council services and the latest on the situation, please visit the dedicated COVID-19 section of the website.

The latest COVID-19 ward chart, which shows the total number of Solihull residents who have tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 14 days, can be viewed here.

Test and Trace update

All the data concerning the National Test and Trace service and our Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire Beacon is available on the microsite at staysafecsw.info, along with the data dashboard for the sub-region.