Hampshire Hospital campaign
THE brutal reality of the coronavirus pandemic is being felt across Hampshire hospitals during the second wave. Every day, the story of Covid-19 is being retold in figures: grim statistics about infection rates in the community, hospital admissions, and the UK death total now over 100,000. For Julie Dawes, chief nurse at Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundations trust which runs Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital, Andover War Memorial Hospital and Royal Hampshire County Hospital, the pandemic is a daily challenge for her. She told the Chronicle: “The number of patients going into critical care is on the increase the key thing is to keep managing those patients really well and making sure we are able to use staff as flexibly as possible to care for patients. It is a long time now for staff to have been caring for patients and wearing PPE so there’s no doubt that staff are feeling tired.
FURTHER evidence Covid-19 is on the retreat in Winchester. The Chronicle has reported the daily figures since last summer and reporting the trend for the numbers to decline around three weeks ago. Now for the first time in weeks no schools in the Winchester district have reported a case in the last 10 days, the only authority in Hampshire to do so. But there are some relative hotspots where Covid is persisting and above the England average: Winchester East, Whiteley Knowle and Wickham and Bishop s Waltham and Waltham Chase. In
Winchester East, which covers part of the city centre, Winnall, Highcliffe and Bar End, the rolling seven-day rate per 100,000 rose from 282 the Sunday before last to 405 today, although down from 417 yesterday. In Winchester East in the seven days to Wednesday January 21 there were 35 new cases, up 12, an increase of 57 per cent.
YOU may pass them on a Covid walk without realising what they are. They look like perfectly normal houses – even fine ones – but they were built with unconventional materials. These are the numerous houses made of chalk. There are many examples in Hampshire, especially in and around the Test Valley and between Andover and the Salisbury Plain. They include Rookwood School in Andover, which was built as a fine gentleman’s residence and Thimble Hall, Quarley, originally a pair of cottages. A fine example once stood where the Royal Hampshire County Hospital was extended in the 1980s. Many existing houses in the Orams Arbour and St Cross areas of Winchester are also made of chalk, excavated from local railway cuttings. And yet from the outside you would never know it.