HEREFORDSHIRE has been warned that Covid hasn't gone away despite a huge fall in the number of cases being recorded.

But the big drop in people testing positive – from 2,791 in the seven days to January 7 to 586 in the week to February 25 – comes as the number of tests carried out also fell.

In the seven days to January 7, an average of 6,671.6 tests, either lab-processed PCRs or rapid lateral flows, were taken each day.

But around two months later in the seven days to February 22, the most up-to-date figures available, that had fallen to an average of 2,488.1 each day.

One factor which could have contributed to the fall is the dropped guidance for secondary school and college pupils to test twice a week.

OTHER NEWS:

Schools are no longer handing out lateral flow tests for pupils, and the scheme for the wider public will be scrapped at the end of the month.

Herefordshire Council's acting director of public health Dr Rebecca Howell-Jones urged caution, saying Covid had not gone away.

“It’s good news that government feels sufficiently confident to remove restrictions," she said, with the law to self-isolate with Covid ending in England.

"But, it’s also important to remember that the virus is still with us. Indeed, we’re all being asked to start ‘living with Covid’.

“In light of this, we ask residents to take personal responsibility and consider other people who may be more vulnerable.

"We can all do this by getting vaccinated and sticking with the really good habits we adopted while restrictions were in place, particularly around hygiene."

OTHER NEWS:

In the seven days to Friday, February 25, a UK Government heatmap showed the areas in Herefordshire with the highest number of new Covid cases.

Cases fell in all but four of Herefordshire's 23 areas compared with data from February 18.

Current coronavirus hotspots in the county, those with the highest infection rates, include:

  • Colwall, Cradley and Wellington Heath
  • Fownhope, Tarrington and Marcle
  • Ross-on-Wye
  • Hereford East: areas such as Tupsley
  • Hereford North East: areas such as Shelwick, Munstone and Aylestone Hill

The infection rate – the number of cases per 100,000 people – for those areas were all above the UK average of 371.1.

The only area which saw a rise in cases over the seven days were Fownhope, Tarrington and Marcle; Colwall, Cradley and Wellington Heath; Ross-on-Wye; and Hereford North East.

The map breaks Herefordshire down into 23 sections known as middle super output areas.

These are used to try and improve the reporting of small area statistics, with an average population of around 7,200 people in England and Wales.

In total, Herefordshire reported 586 cases in the seven days to February 25, giving it an infection rate of 302.7 cases per 100,000 people.

That was 285 fewer cases than the week before when the infection rate was 449.9. A fortnight ago it was 707.1.