Welsh cities still seeing higher rates of virus
CORONAVIRUS figures in some of Wales’ cities remain stubbornly high.
Though numbers have dropped dramatically from the highs seen in winter, Cardiff, Newport and Swansea are stuck in the low 20s and early 30s in terms of cases per 100,000.
Though this is much better than it has been, it is still far higher than in the summer, when cases were below five.
It is still a fairly high rate given the fact that last August flights were banned from countries once their incident rate went above 20 per 100,000.
The hyper-local data shows that there are outbreaks all across the cities, suggesting these are not isolated outbreaks like we saw in meat processing factories last year.
So, why are Wales’ cities seeing higher sustained Covid rates?
According to incident director at Public Health Wales Dr Giri Shankar, much of it is down to the behaviour of individuals breaking the rules.
“Higher rates in urban areas are due to ongoing transmission between different and extended households that are mixing more than they should,” he said.
“We are seeing cases as a result of gatherings such as birthday parties – and not as a result of major outbreaks in workplaces as was the case earlier in the pandemic.
“Small hotspots are likely to remain – but once again we have to be careful in this period of lower incidents that small sparks of transmission don’t become large fires.” This begs the question that, given that we are about to reopen more, does this mean that these areas will never drop to the levels of last summer?
“It is difficult to predict with complete certainty,” said Dr Shankar.
“But it is reasonable to expect baseline infection will continue as restrictions are gradually lifted. If we act carefully and cautiously, we can keep rates to minimum.”
He also suggested that there is the possibility of cases rising as restrictions are lifted.
Dr Shankar said: “Releasing restrictions is one action - but how people will behave is absolutely crucial.
“We all have a collective responsibility to keep levels low by restricting our behaviour in line with public health advice.
“Potentially, cases could rise as restrictions are lifted.
“This is based on previous experiences of when there has been an easing of restrictions; we have seen that this has provided an opportunity for the virus to spread.
“Public Health Wales urges us all to take every precaution we can, to act with the right behaviour, to observe the rules in the hope we can keep managing levels the virus downwards.”
The reason this reopening is so much harder to predict is because of the role that the vaccines are now going to have on transmission.
It is possible that once every has been vaccinated that we will be able to tolerate some low levels of Covid in Wales but not see the large scale hospitalisations.
“This is a dynamic situation and there is increasing and encouraging evidence that the vaccine protects us against serious and complex illness,” said Dr Shankar.
“This offers hope of reducing a further burden on the NHS and reducing mortality and serious harm from coronavirus.
“We must be mindful however, of Variants of Concern (VoCs) across the world as some may have the ability to reduce the effectiveness of the vaccine and we must ensure these VoCs are stamped out as soon as possible.”