Cardiff has the worst infection rate in wales – but other stats encouraging
WHILE the coronavirus infection rate continues to drop across Wales and restrictions begin to lift, the virus is spreading more widely in Cardiff than any other part of the country.
Despite most of Wales continuing to see rapid falls in Covid numbers, Wales’ two main cities, Cardiff and Swansea, have stayed persistently at about 30 cases per 100,000.
Cardiff currently has 31.6 cases for every 100,000 people, the highest figure in Wales. Gwynedd has the second highest rate at 28.9, with Anglesey third on 28.6. Swansea’s rate, which is the fourth highest in Wales, has fallen from 32.4 to 27.9. Previously, Swansea had been the worst area for infection rates.
No other local authorities have more than 20.
For comparison, the infection rate across Wales now stands at 17.4 cases per 100,000 people for the seven days leading up to April 10.
But while Cardiff is undoubtedly one of the areas where the virus is continuing to take hold, just how bad is the situation across several indicators?
Just like the rest of Wales, the capital is seeing the downward trend in cases continue since the second peak of the virus exhausted the health service earlier this year.
According to the latest data, Cardiff has not reported more than 50 cases in one day since February and has yet to record more than 20 cases in a day in April.
While the infection rate per 100,000 people has dropped dramatically since the second peak of the virus earlier this year, the rate Cardiff has remained stubbornly at around the 30 mark.
To compare, on December 31, 2020, the rate per 100,000 people in Cardiff stood at 453.3.
Just over a month later on February 1 it had more than halved at 140.4 and by March 1 it had halved again to 71.4 per 100,000.
By March 14 this had dropped to 33.5 but the infection rate has remained at around 30 per 100,000 people for several weeks.
On Wednesday the infection rate for Cardiff was 31.3. Yesterday it has risen slightly to 31.6, the highest rate in Wales.
The vast majority of areas in Cardiff recorded between zero and two new positive coronavirus cases in the seven days between April 3 and April 9.
Of those that did record more than two cases, only two areas – Grangetown North and Butetown – recorded new cases in double figures at 20 and 11 respectively.
The number of new confirmed cases for Grangetown North is particularly worrying as this gives the area an infection rate of 223.1 per 100,000 people. This is by far the highest rate in Cardiff and also the highest rate in Wales.
In recent weeks there have been several high profile incidents of rules breaking in Cardiff, including in Cardiff Bay where large crowds gathered for a massive party with very little social distancing.
However, it is too early to know if these events have contributed to the persistently higher cases in the cities.
The latest testing numbers continue to show a steady drop since the start of 2021.
This is to be expected as the number of cases drops.
According to the figures, only twice this year have more than 1,000 tests been carried out in a single day.
On April 11, 229 coronavirus tests were carried out in Cardiff – a drop of around 1,000 compared to the 1,162 recorded in early January.
On average in Wales 2% of tests done produce positive results. Cardiff ’s comparable figures are 3.6%, suggesting higher community transmission. By contrast, Monmouthshire’s positivity percentage is just 0.2%.
The hospitalisation figures are a key figure to show how well the health board area is coping with the virus.
The latest set of figures continue to show good news, with all indicators dropping.
For the first time, suspected coronavirus hospitalisation has dropped below confirmed hospitalisation and the total number of people admitted to hospital with coronavirus continues to drop.
The number of people in hospital in the Cardiff and Vale health board area with confirmed coronavirus was 127 on April 13 compared with 570 on January 22, 2021.
A confirmed Covid-19 case refers to a patient who has received a positive result in the past 14 days.
There are more positive signs from the data looking at how many Covid-19 patients are occupying general and acute beds across the health board.
The figure continues to drop from the start of 2021, which has now stayed below 300 for more than a month and in recent days has dropped below 150.
Another key indicator of how the health board is coping is how many intensive care beds are being used.
These beds are used to treat the sickest patients, including those being treated for coronavirus.
Since the start of the year, the number of people being treated for coronavirus on such beds has dropped significantly and as of April 13 Cardiff had just three patients being treated for coronavirus in this way.
However, due to the new information on how to treat coronavirus, as well as the vaccine programme, fewer people have generally needed to be treated by ventilators in the second wave.
Again the figures for coronavirus patients continue to drop while the overall number of vacant beds rises.
Due to the low numbers, these figures do tend to fluctuate more than other indicators.
But since the start of March, the number of coronavirus patients in intensive care has mostly been in single figures.