King's Lynn hospital boss pleads with people to keep Christmases 'small and local'
The boss of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King's Lynn has pleaded with people to keep their Christmases "small, local and limited" this year to ease growing pressure on services.
In an open letter, Caroline Shaw warned there are currently nearly twice as many Covid patients at the hospital than in the peak of the first wave.
Mrs Shaw said that "best present" people could give the hospital this year was to keep gatherings limited.
"It’s so important that everyone continues to follow the Government guidance on keeping Christmas gatherings small, local and limited," she said.
"This is the best Christmas present you can give to QEH and our staff that will ensure we can provide the very best care over the rest of the winter period and help reduce the spread of COVID-19.
"These rules we are asking you to live by won’t last forever but they will help support your local hospital and our staff as we continue to battle this awful virus."
In the week to Wednesday 16 December, the infection rate in King's Lynn and West Norfolk stood at 194.9 cases per 100,000 people, compared to 122.9 the week before.
Meanwhile, scientists believe the new Covid variant accounted for more than a third of new cases at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, during the second week of this month.
Researchers from the The Quadram Institute in Norwich also found the variant was responsible for 45% of all positive results in Norfolk in the first week of December.
According to the study, there were at least seven different strains of the virus introduced in Norfolk in November, and it's thought that a "distinct variant" caused a serious outbreak in Wymondham that month.
"There is a time lag between getting infected and being sick enough to require a trip to the hospital for Covid-19, so we would expect the new variant cases to rise in other hospitals across the county in the coming weeks," researchers wrote.
"There is no evidence to suggest the new variant causes more severe disease or affects age groups differently to other lineages of the virus. However, those that are vulnerable to severe infection (older people and immuno-compromised people) remain vulnerable. If this new lineage is more transmissible, more vulnerable people will catch it faster, putting them and the NHS at risk."