'Sharp rise' in coronavirus patients in North Yorkshire's hospitals

The number of people admitted to the county's hospitals in the last seven days has jumped to 121, up from 109 this time last week.

The latest figure includes eight patients in Scarborough, nine in Harrogate, 27 in York and 77 in South Tees.

Twenty-three of the patients are being treated in Intensive Care Units.

Hospitalisations had been falling after the number reached 131 two weeks ago.

Amanda Bloor, the accountable officer for the North Yorkshire Clinical Commissioning Group told a meeting of the North Yorkshire Local Resilience Forum that there had been a number of people admitted over the weekend.

She said: "Over the course of last week we did see quite a sharp decrease in the number of patients with Covid in hospital, but over the weekend we had quite a sharp rise and that does seem to stabilize but it is in line with what we are seeing more broadly across the country.

"So we are still seeing quite significant numbers of patients requiring hospital treatment when they become poorly with Covid."

Mrs Bloor also urged younger people who had not taken up the offer of a vaccine to come forward to get one.

She added: "We are seeing younger people getting Covid who do need to be admitted to hospital for treatment and they are sometimes becoming quite poorly.

"So please do not delay getting the vaccine. It is the single most important thing that you can do to protect yourself."