Health & Beauty

Devon County Council's community testing team, which has been delivering a mobile lateral flow testing service, as well as COVID-19 vaccinations, to local communities across Devon since January 2021, will change its operations from 1 April .

The government’s ‘Living with COVID-19’ plan will see the end to universal access to free lateral flow and PCR tests for most people at the end of March.

The council's outreach vans will continue to support the vaccinations programme, alongside NHS Devon colleagues, across the county. But the availability of free lateral flow tests...

Spring booster jabs are being offered to people at greatest risk of COVID-19 infection from Monday 21 March in the latest phase of the vaccine programme.

An additional Covid-19 vaccine dose is being offered as a precaution to people in Devon who are at extreme high risk from COVID-19 infection, many of whom had their first booster six months ago. This will help protect them if COVID-19 rates are high over the summer months and reduce their chances of needing hospital treatment if they do catch the virus.

The best time to have the spring booster is around six months after...

Steve Brown, Devon's Director of Public Health, is urging people to stay at home if they feel unwell, with coronavirus, or symptoms of other illnesses that could be infectious.

His call comes as Devon is seeing a rise again in the number of coronavirus cases, with the latest data showing a 63.4 per cent increase in cases in a seven day period.

"I believe that many people are now left uncertain of what they should be doing; with the legal requirement to self-isolate gone, with free testing for most people about to end, and the onus now on individuals to decide for...

“Please don’t visit friends and family in our hospitals if you have Covid or other illnesses” – that’s the message from Devon’s NHS, as the number of people in hospital with Covid-19 remains high.

Many of the restrictions brought in to reduce the spread of Covid-19 in the community have come to an end, but people are still required to wear a mask in health settings and are being asked to wash and sanitise their hands.

And anyone with symptoms of Covid-19 or other illnesses that can spread easily, such as flu or norovirus, is urged not to visit patients in hospital....