Evidence Caerphilly lockdown is working

FOLLOWING a fortnight of local lockdown in Caerphilly, there are signs infection rates are reducing.

At its peak, on September 11, the county was reporting 96.6 cases of the virus per 100,000 population. However, fastforward to September 23 and the latest figures show that it has been reduced to 37.6 per 100,000.

Caerphilly is also reporting far fewer Covid cases per day, with 16 recorded on September 23 compared to 34 on September 10. It wasn’t long ago that the authority was frequently reporting the most cases of anywhere in Wales. That now appears to be a distant memory.

Dr Hefin David, MS for Caerphilly, said he had been greatly impressed with people’s strict adherence to the local lockdown rules. He said: “I’m witnessing first-hand that people are taking it very seriously and are abiding by the rules as set out by the Welsh Government. I’m really impressed that people in my community have embraced this and have committed themselves to getting this back under control.”

A review of lockdown measures in Caerphilly will take place today and every seven days thereafter.

“Given the announcement from the First Minister and the Prime Minister, I don’t anticipate these restrictions being lifted tomorrow [Thursday] given the wider picture across the whole of the UK,” Dr David said.

Meanwhile, Dr Giri Shankar, incident director at Public Health Wales said: “It is too early to give a detailed picture of the effect of restrictions on the borough of Caerphilly. We are cautiously optimistic and hope the rates will come down further and will continue to monitor the situation very closely.”