Health officials say they are concerned that Covid-19 is working its way down to the south west and that Cornwall could see a spike in cases.

Members of the NHS Kernow Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) governing highlighted their concerns at a meeting yesterday morning.

Dr Matt Hayman, a member of the governing body, said that he was concerned that figures and data were being presented nationally and not reflecting the local picture.

He said: “I worry somewhat slightly about the national picture – that is not the south west experience I believe.

“What we are seeing, especially in the north, is we have more cases of Covid now than we have had at any other point in time. This isn’t a London based disease anymore.”

Helen Charlesworth-May, joint accountable officer for public health and care for NHS Kernow and Cornwall Council, said that the south west picture would be different to elsewhere in the country.

She said: “What does the picture look like in the south west – that is a really important one.

“The modelling that we have developed very much demonstrates that what we are likely to see here is very different to what was seen in large urban conurbations.

“I would be interested for us to learn from what has happened further up in the south west region.

“There was a question in Minehead that we are seeing the virus roll down the peninsular, at a time when the rest of the country is seeing less cases we are getting more.”

Dr Judy Duckworth added: “It does seem that it is rolling down the south west and we have hotels looking at reopening in July.

“We have seen what happened in Weston with the hospital recently having to close its doors for Covid.”

Chris Blong, deputy chair of the governing body, said: “We are going to see a spike and how we message about that is important.

“Up here in Oxfordshire they are back to normal, the social distancing isn’t happening – that will happen in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.

“We are going to have an issue if we have to ramp those (measures) up again.

“We need to have the message out that we are not out of the woods yet. If we do get a second spike it will be quite serious.”