We had 20 members this evening and we also had one of our Trustees Valerie and we also had a visitor from Carlton Court Care Home – Andrew Wrench –Community Development Manager.

Lisa first started by welcoming everyone and said that whilst we were going to try out some ‘breakout’ sessions, she informed everyone about her previous meeting and how the Zoom ‘breakout’ sessions just didn’t work and people were getting lost. Lisa mentioned that this was something that needed to be looked at further and tried at a later date especially as she had some updates to deliver.

Lisa first mentioned that after her Council Health Board meetings today regarding the up to date infection rate in Barnet, she was pleased to report that the infection has gone down but we still need to be very careful. Lisa also mentioned about a new COVID strain from Denmark derived from mink that have re-infected humans. This also applies the same in Italy and therefore the UK Borders are now closed so that there is no risk of this new strain entering the UK.

The new vaccine that has been recently developed from Pfizer and BioNTech would probably not have any effect on the new strain. Lisa mentioned that it is certainly good news that there is finally a vaccine that may be ready by the end of December and Councils are preparing for sites so that people can attend and be vaccinated. The vaccine will be delivered in 2 doses and it is important during the doses that people continue to be very careful until the body has had time to develop the antibodies.

Lisa then continued to inform everyone about a search that can be made on Google ‘A Break from caring – Barnet Council’ and from this search everyone can find different information that has been discussed in previous weeks. Everyone made a note about this. This led to other questions raised from everyone on the various topics and Andrew from Carlton Court was also able to respond to some of the concerns raised by members.

It was also mentioned by everyone in the meeting how much they really enjoy the Lisa & Mark Karaoke Show and how this has made a huge difference to their loved ones being able to singalong. In fact it was requested to have more sessions of the same if possible.

This was a very interesting meeting and everyone fed back how helpful the meeting was.