Cases climb among kids

COVID cases among school-age children have steadily increased over the past three weeks while the number of cases in people over 70 has nearly halved.

The latest data from Public Health Wales (PHW) shows that while Covid cases remain high across all age groups infections among children aged 10 to 19 are around half of what they were just before October half-term.

At that point nearly half of all cases being diagnosed in Wales were in children aged under 10 and 10 to 19-year-olds.

The effect of the Covid vaccine is being felt among the older age groups, the majority of whom have now received booster jabs. Notably the number of people aged 70 to 79 catching Covid has fallen by 45% in the last three weeks.

Just over 80% of people in this age group have now received their booster compared to 66% three weeks ago.

For the week ending November 24 one in five Covid cases were recorded in children aged 10 to 19 – 3,044 in total. Around 60% in this age bracket have had their first jab.

Case numbers in the 10 to 19 age groups have increased compared to the previous week while all other age groups have shown a drop. This is a reversal of the last time we looked at age group data where the number of cases in school-age children in Wales had dropped by more than a fifth.

We are now coming to the end of the fourth week after the autumn half-term. According to the latest figures the biggest fall in the past week is in the 60 to 69 age group, which has seen case numbers decrease by 20% in the last seven days.

This is also the age group which has seen the greatest strides in the number of people getting booster jabs.