{"id":54696,"date":"2022-01-06T14:35:12","date_gmt":"2022-01-06T14:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/?p=54696"},"modified":"2022-01-06T14:35:13","modified_gmt":"2022-01-06T14:35:13","slug":"new-years-message-from-steve-brown-director-of-public-health-devon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/new-years-message-from-steve-brown-director-of-public-health-devon\/","title":{"rendered":"New Year\u2019s message from Steve Brown, Director of Public Health Devon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p><strong>A very Happy New Y<\/strong>ear to <strong>you all, with hopes for a brighter and safer year ahead of us<\/strong>.<\/p><p>The number of cases of coronavirus in Devon is currently lower than the England average, with the highly infectious Omicron variant now dominant in all areas.<\/p><p>Devon has lagged behind the national trend by a few weeks with coronavirus, which allows us more time to get booster jabs and be better protected. Cases of Omicron have so far been relatively mild, compared to earlier variants, and our uptake of the vaccinations is high, which is all good news.<\/p><p>However cases here in Devon are rising in all age groups and with the return to schools this week, we expect to see rates increase considerably in the coming weeks.\u00a0 At the same time, there are huge pressures within health and social care, including hospitals and ambulance services.\u00a0 Hospital admissions are rising, and we expect the pressure on those critical services to get worse over coming weeks.<\/p><p>My New Year\u2019s message is simple.\u00a0 We are not out of the woods with coronavirus, and we have an immediate hill to climb over the next few weeks to get us over this current Omicron surge.\u00a0 We know what to do.\u00a0 Please follow the guidance, and do everything we can to minimise risk to ourselves and others.<\/p><cite>Steve Brown, Director of Public Health Devon<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The latest guidance<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Take up the vaccine as soon as you\u2019re eligible \u2013 it\u2019s not too late to have 1<sup>st<\/sup>, 2<sup>nd<\/sup>, or booster vaccinations<\/li><li>Test regularly with lateral flow tests, if you have no symptoms, and take a PCR test if you have symptoms<\/li><li>Self-isolate if you have symptoms, and if you test positive<\/li><li>Wear face coverings when indoors in crowded spaces, including on public transport<\/li><li>Keep indoor spaces ventilated<\/li><li>Wash your hands properly and regularly<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":54697,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[293],"class_list":["post-54696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-social-care","tag-coronavirus"],"acf":[],"featured_image":{"ID":54697,"title":"New Year","alt":"two people holding sparklers in the dark","description":"","caption":"Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash","url":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2022\/01\/New-Year-scaled.jpg","width":2048,"height":1367,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2022\/01\/New-Year-400x270.jpg","thumbnail_width":400,"thumbnail_height":270,"medium":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2022\/01\/New-Year-600x401.jpg","medium_width":600,"medium_height":401,"medium_large":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2022\/01\/New-Year-768x513.jpg","medium_large_width":768,"medium_large_height":513,"large":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2022\/01\/New-Year-800x534.jpg","large_width":800,"large_height":534,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2022\/01\/New-Year-1536x1025.jpg","1536x1536_width":1536,"1536x1536_height":1025,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2022\/01\/New-Year-2048x1367.jpg","2048x2048_width":2048,"2048x2048_height":1367,"thumbnail_featured":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2022\/01\/New-Year-770x450.jpg","thumbnail_featured_width":770,"thumbnail_featured_height":450,"thumbnail_sidebar":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2022\/01\/New-Year-200x135.jpg","thumbnail_sidebar_width":200,"thumbnail_sidebar_height":135,"banner-block":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2022\/01\/New-Year-scaled.jpg","banner-block_width":440,"banner-block_height":294,"small-banner":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2022\/01\/New-Year-scaled.jpg","small-banner_width":640,"small-banner_height":427,"medium-banner":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2022\/01\/New-Year-scaled.jpg","medium-banner_width":1024,"medium-banner_height":684,"small-thumb":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2022\/01\/New-Year-scaled.jpg","small-thumb_width":640,"small-thumb_height":427,"medium-thumb":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2022\/01\/New-Year-scaled.jpg","medium-thumb_width":320,"medium-thumb_height":214,"large-thumb":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2022\/01\/New-Year-scaled.jpg","large-thumb_width":420,"large-thumb_height":280,"slideshow-preview":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2022\/01\/New-Year-scaled.jpg","slideshow-preview_width":300,"slideshow-preview_height":200,"slideshow":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2022\/01\/New-Year-scaled.jpg","slideshow_width":800,"slideshow_height":533}},"category_priority":false,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2028-05-02 21:34:57","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54696"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54701,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54696\/revisions\/54701"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}