The number of coronavirus patients at Croydon University Hospital is not expected to drop for up to five weeks. 

As of Tuesday (January 19) there were 233 Covid-19 patients being treated at the London Road hospital. 

At a meeting of Croydon Council’s health and wellbeing board on Wednesday, trust chairman Michael Bell said that the number of patients increased dramatically in December.

He said: “Those numbers have stabilised over the past day, we are fluctuating between 220 and 250 a day. 20 to 30 new arrivals every day, that is giving us a fairly stable number of patients.

“We are anticipating they will stay broadly stable for up to five weeks, we are not expecting a significant drop in inpatients before the middle of February.”

At the same meeting GP Agnelo Fernandes revealed that now more than 17,000 people in Croydon have received their first Covid-19 vaccination jab. 

A total of 9,000 of those have been vaccinated at the hospital while others have received theirs at the six community sites in Old Coulsdon, Purley, Valley Park, New Addington, Thornton Heath and Fairfield Halls.

And by the end of this week all residents at Croydon’s 127 care homes are expected to have received their first jab. 

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Two more vaccination centres are yet to open, one at Crystal Palace FC ground Selhurst Park and another in central Croydon. 

But Croydon Council’s director of public health Rachel Flowers warned that even after vaccinations, coronavirus will be something we have to live with.

She said: “Vaccination will not make us free, this disease is ultra infectious. We are not anticipating even when we get her immunity there will be no community transmission. 

“It is part of our risk reduction and will reduce the amount people going to hospital and passing away from Covid.”

The number of coronavirus cases in Croydon is now going down, but Ms Flowers described the latest rate of 853 per 100,000 (seven days to January 14) as “shockingly high”.

The rate in London in the same time frame was 731 per 100,000. 

Cases in Croydon peaked at 1,205 per 100,000 people for the seven days up to January 4.