As of 10 June 2020, over 5,000 people in Kent were recorded to have had COVID-19 infection. Ashford appeared to be a hotspot for the virus, with an infection rate of over 600 per 100,000 population. Dr Lindsay Forbes, Senior Clinical Research Fellow (Public Health) at the Univerity of Kent’s Centre for Health Services Studies, has commented on why Ashford may be a hotspot for COVID-19 in Kent. She said:
‘The West Kent districts of Tunbridge Wells, Tonbridge and Malling and Sevenoaks had much lower rates than Ashford, with around 200 cases per 100,000. It doesn’t seem likely that these huge differences are the result of differing rates of testing across the county.
‘What the data does not tell us at the moment is the extent to which the people living in each of the Kent districts have been able to keep away from others. People in key worker jobs have had to carry on going out to work (for instance, health and care workers, police officers, firefighters, and people in industries related to food production and distribution, utilities, waste management and public transport) – many with insufficient protective equipment. Ashford has one of the highest proportion of people who are key workers in England – about 40%. In West Kent the figure is below 28%. It is much easier to avoid infection if you can do your job at home, or are furloughed.
‘The good news for Ashford is that it does not seem to have particularly high death rates from COVID-19 – less than the average for England, after taking into account the age distribution of the population. Recent analyses by Public Health England show that the worst death rates have been in areas that are more densely populated, urban, poorer and with a higher proportion of people belonging to Black and Asian ethnic groups. In Kent, Dartford has the worst death rates to date, which may be because it is more densely populated and has a more ethnically diverse population. But the pandemic is not over yet – the geographical patterns of infection and deaths may be different in a second wave…’
Dr Lindsay Forbes is Senior Clinical Research Fellow (Public Health) at Kent’s Centre for Health Services Studies (CHSS). She is an academic public health physician with special interests in the epidemiology of long term conditions and the design and evaluation of services to meet the needs of the growing population who have these. Her main focus is currently the organisation of general practice. Dr Forbes joined the Centre for Health Services Studies in January 2016 from King’s College London and Queen Mary, University of London.
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