Virus cases SIX times higher, reveal figures

PUBLIC health officials have finally received crucial local testing figures from government after nearly two months of pleading – and they reveal the number of cases here in the past week has been as much as six times higher than their own data suggested.

Since the start of May officials here have been begging government to release ‘pillar two’ testing data, the results of swabs carried out at drivethrough stations and other facilities operated here by the private sector on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care.

Without it, they only had access to ‘pillar one’ test numbers, those carried out directly by Greater Manchester councils and hospitals and processed in Public Health England labs. That had left public health directors flying blind, unable to accurately gauge the virus’s spread in the community.

This week they finally received the missing data – and it shows nearly 400 more people had tested positive in the past week than their existing figures would have suggested.

In total there had been 78 new ‘pillar one’ cases, those the region already knew about, but once ‘pillar two’ tests were added in the real figure came to 465. Andy Burnham said it was impossible to compare that number because no historic figures had been provided, but said having access to the data was like ‘a light had come on.’ One senior official told the

M.E.N. that without the numbers it would have been impossible to effectively complete the ‘local outbreak management plans’ councils had been ordered to create by ministers, because they had no real idea of current numbers of cases. Mr Burnham said the number was ‘significant’ but stressed Greater Manchester also carries out a particularly high number of tests, which will have been a factor in the total.

Calling it an ‘important number,’ he said: “For the first time, we’re seeing the true picture. Some of this has been hidden to us until this point. Finally we can see the full number of cases and it’s a significant number. People need to be aware of that.”

He said it was ‘almost impossible to compare’ that number because it was the first time Greater Manchester had had access to the data, so there was no trend to analyse. But he said the ‘overall’ trends in the region still seemed to be going in the right direction, including hospital admissions, deaths and care home outbreaks.