Downward trend gives Wales positive outlook
As the number of coronavirus cases in Wales continues to show a marked decline since its spring peak, David James looks at what the latest figures mean for the nation...
THE declining number of cases involving coronavirus reported every day in Wales have been telling a relatively positive story for several weeks.
For the second time this week, there were no new coronavirus deaths reported to Public Health Wales on Thursday. The agency had not been notified of a death involving Covid-19 since Monday.
There are also fewer than 25 cases being reported to the public health body every day, despite the fact testing levels are much higher than they were at the start of the outbreak – with 4,319 new tests carried out on Thursday alone.
Yet the virus remains in circulation in Wales, with cases recorded across the nation. There are also two Welsh council areas that have seen significantly more cases diagnosed than were found in the other 20.
The number of cases being reported every day in Wales – and where they are from – now includes all the tests carried out by both the NHS and by the private-sector Lighthouse Labs in England, which processes the tests people are sent to do in their own home.
Wrexham has been seeing by far the most transmission of Covid-19 in the seven days to Thursday.
It follows an outbreak linked to the Rowan Foods meat-processing plant in the town. However, the Welsh Government has said the plant is not the source of the cases.
The 20 cases diagnosed in Wrexham in the latest seven-day period have also not all been linked to the factory.
The number of cases in Wrexham is equivalent to 14.7 cases for every 100,000 people in the council area in that period.
To put this in context, at the height of the outbreak in late March, Newport saw 110 cases for every 100,000 people in a week. This is even more stark when you consider that there were 642 tests done in Wrexham in the past week and only 3.1% were positive.
In the week of its peak in early March, Newport only did 340 tests, of which slightly over 50% were positive.
At the moment, all but one of the seven councils with the most cases of Covid-19 in the past week are in North Wales. Conwy has had 11.1 cases per 100,000 people, Gwynedd 8.8, Anglesey 7.1, Flintshire 5.1 and Denbighshire 4.2.
The only one outside North Wales is Merthyr Tydfil, where there have been a number of cases linked to a cluster at the town’s Kepak meat-processing facility, and which had 6.6 cases in the past week.
Most of the areas that saw the worst problems in Wales at the height of the peak, Cardiff, RCT and Newport, have all seen case levels fall dramatically. Newport only had 0.6 cases in the past week per 100,000 people, Cardiff 0.8 and RCT 1.7. In the week to Thursday, Caerphilly, Torfaen, and Ceredigion all had no cases.
Looking at where the most cases were seen in the previous week (June 29 to July 5), the striking thing is that Wrexham again had the most cases, although a far higher number (52) were diagnosed the previous week, which equates to 38.2 cases for every 100,000 people.
That week, Merthyr had the second most cases per population, with 13.3 cases for every 100,000 people – although as the area has such a low population there were only eight cases diagnosed during the seven- day period.
This also shows how misleading it was to compare the Covid-19 infections diagnosed in Merthyr with Leicester. While a single day of testing in Merthyr linked to the Kepak factory saw more than 100 cases diagnosed in a 24-hour period, causing the figures to appear distorted, there has not been sustained community transmission in the Welsh town, as has been seen in the English city.
The good news is that in nearly all council areas infection rates fell from that week (to July 5) and the most recent seven-day period. The only areas to see slight rises were Pembrokeshire and Monmouthshire, which had no cases that week but one and three respectively the following week, and Gwynedd and Conwy, which did see rises.
Overall, however, the overwhelming trend is downwards – despite the significantly higher number of tests being done. And Torfaen has seen no cases for a fortnight.
With the exception of days where a lot of previously reported cases have been added to the statistics, usually due to the incorporation of different reporting methods, the number of cases of coronavirus diagnosed in Wales has seen a sustained decline.
It has been under 30 for the past week – less than a tenth of the level it was at in early April, when some 385 cases were diagnosed on April 4.
The number of deaths with Covid19 being reported in Wales has also seen a sustained fall.
The total number of lives lost reported each day by Public Health Wales reflects when the fatalities were reported to them rather than when the deaths occurred.
The contrast between the Welsh figures and the level of infections in Leicester is striking. In the 14 days to July 13, Leicester saw 643 positive tests in the area that was locked down again. The city has an estimated population of 417,829. As of Thursday, Wales – with a population of 3.2 million – had only seen 244 positive tests in the previous 14 days.