LIFE IN HARD-HIT COVID TOWN
Laura Clements reports from the town that missed the worst of the first wave of coronavirus but is now one of the hardest-hit parts of Wales
IN JUNE, as Wales emerged from the first lockdown, Ceredigion found it made headlines for the right reason: here was a part of the country which almost entirely escaped the disease which reached crisis points in other parts of Wales.
With just 42 confirmed cases up to June 5, and seven deaths, it seemed that in the coastal council area of Ceredigion the virus never really took hold.
Five months later, nearly three weeks after Wales emerged from the second“fire break” lock down, it it’ ssa very different story.
Cases in Ceredigon aren’t going down. In fact, they are rising faster than they ever have before. re.
On the day we visit Cardigan ardigan and Aberporth, the latest seven-day ven-day data shows infection rates topped opped 529.4 cases per 100,000 – within hin the highest decile bracket in Wales ales and the eighth highest rate at MSOA SOA level in all of Wales.
It has since risen further her to hit 788 cases for every 100,000 people in the past week. This is the second cond highest rate that week.
As of 9am on Thursday, day, Ceredigion had seen more than an 100 positive cases since the Sunday, unday, 67 of which came from just one town – Cardigan.
More worryingly, council ncil officials said, more than 300 00 people had come into contact ontact with Covid-19 with evidence ence of “significant transmission”. ion”. They put the blame squarearely on “super spreader” er” events such as large parrties and large social gath- erings in pubs in Cardigan over the past fortnight.
The Covid surge has caused pubs, butchers, restaurants, shops and even the town’s post office to close.
Whether it’s complacency, irresponsibility or simple inevitability, people living in Cardigan and the surrounding areas are trying to come to terms with the fact they have been branded the latest Covid hotspot.
A council spokesman said: “There is clear evidence from the work of the contract tracing team which has discussed with each positive case their recent contacts, the places they have been etc that there are
‘super spreader events’ that have contributed to the community transmission of the coronavirus in the Cardig a n area.”
Social media is rife with rumours surrounding just who had the audacity to flout the rules and ruin it for everyone else, but in the town itself people are less quick to judge.
At the top of town Jerry Rees, coowner of the Happy Planet Green Store, says the news of the spike in cases has definitely affected business.
“It’s been very quiet since it all came out on Monday,” he said. “While the summer holidays were here, we didn’t see our regulars but as soon as the tourists w went home, the regulars came back. Some people really were scared scared.
“On Monday after we heard about the o outbreak it changed overnight overnig virtually. It was very very quiet on Monday, a and rightly so, because there th were a lot of people who were very scare scared of the news about abou the outbreak a and how quickly and easily it can be spre spread around these little towns.” to Jerry op opened the shop with his wife Tania nearly two years ago and sa said it had grown well, especially given the pandemic.
“People “want wa to shop locally loc now and an a lot of people pe have come c back and stayed with us,” he said.
He puts the spike in cases down to “either complacency or people getting fed up and having had enough”. He doesn’t blame anyone though and says it was almost inevitable that it would arrive in Ceredigion at some point.
“We had all the holidaymakers through the summer and didn’t see a rise in cases,” he continued. “But we just don’t know enough about it yet. You can destroy a family just by one little bit of irresponsibility.”
He’s talking about taking unnecessary risk, which is why he won’t be visiting his elderly parents in Somerset over Christmas.
“Anyone could be carrying it, unknowingly, and not showing symptoms and then going into a shop or pub,” he says. “I don’t want to be seen blaming them for doing something irresponsible and awful.
“We were lucky for so long and we have just been unlucky that someone came along with it and passed it
around.”
Jerry has heard the rumours of how a birthday party in The Bell Inn was the source but says it is just that: rumour. The Western Mail understands that the supposed 50th party was actually held in 2018 and it was only brought to the council’s attention after it was shared as a memory on Facebook and someone subsequently reported it.
While it is true that The Bell has closed temporarily, alongside the Red Lion, neither pubs were initially forced to by the council but made the decision to close voluntarily. They did so after track and trace data showed staff members as well as a number of people who went to the two pubs had subsequently tested positive and the council asked people who’d visited them to “be extra vigilant and to self-isolate”.
But on Friday Ceredigion council said it had decided to force the closure of both the Red Lion and the Bell Hotel.
A spokesman said: “As a response to the serious and imminent threat to public health in the Cardigan area, Ceredigion council considers it is necessary and proportionate to exercise its powers under the above regulations and issue premises irections to close the following premises: The Red Lion Inn, Pwllhai, Cardigan, SA43 1DD; and the Bell Hotel, 4 Pendre, Cardigan, SA43 1JL.
“Similar sanctions are also being considered in relation to a number of other premises in the county.”
The team at the Red Lion said it had been served a 21-day closure notice on The Red Lion from 6pm Wednesday.
They said: “While their reasons for doing this are to protect the Cardigan population from the spread of the pandemic, they have decided to place this closure on The Red Lion because we are one of the busiest pubs in Cardigan and therefore a focus point that may enable the virus to spread.
“So we are being asked to help in stopping the spread of the virus by closing our doors for 21 days. As we said last Friday keeping Cardigan and it’s residents safe will always come first over profit.”
There are seven pubs in the town and those two are especially popular. Cardigan is a small tight-knit community and there are just over 4,000 people living in the town itself. The real fear was the “alarming rate of spread” and just how many contacts could be traced from those testing positive.
A spokesman said: “In discussions with those positive cases, over 300 contacts have been identified, most of which attended the same premises and events during this period.”
For the week November 17-23, Ceredigion reported 96 cases, nearly half of which came from Cardigan and Aberporth (47). That gives the town an infection rate of 429.4 per 100,000 population. Neighbouring Cilgerran and Crymych, which falls inside Pembrokeshire, reported 26 cases and an infection rate of 306.1 per 100,000.
Across Wales, the infection rate stood at 189.4 per 100,000 for the same period.
Sara Edwards thinks the council has over-reacted in the way the news was broken on Sunday, November 22, and by identifying a “super spreader” event had “made it into a story”.
“I want to know how many cases there are in Cilgerran, Aberporth and Cardigan town,” she said. “Because something else has happened in those places.
“Cardigan is a brilliant town; we’ve faced all the visitors from all over through the summer and we got to the end of the holidays and we thought ‘Phew, we’ve got through it’, but now we’ve caught up with the rest of the country.
“It’s crept higher here and maybe it will have shaken Pembrokeshire next door and warned people who maybe thought we were over it.”
Her shop, Cleo, has been a mainstay on the high street since 1971 and was run by her grandmother before her. Sara says it has only ever been closed for family bereavements.
“We are adapting and adjusting and we have never had anything like this before,” she says of the impact of coronavirus. “But we are still here. I’m what you call old-school I suppose – I believe in being open and not giving in.
“I’m down to one in and one out in the shop. We are open for business and we are adhering to all the measures.”
A few doors down, Nerys Evans is in the kitchen at the back of her shop, Cardigan Bay Brownies. Her business, which opened in Cardigan just over a year ago is running on the bare minimum in terms of staff and opening hours. Trade through the summer had been brisk, she said and they had enjoyed a good few months.
“It was inevitable,” Nerys says about the Cardigan outbreak.
“We are a small tight community and Cardigan always pulls together. It’s nice to see shops still open because there’s livelihoods at stake.”
She won’t be drawn on the rumours circulating about how the virus spread quite so quick through the area.
“I really feel for anyone who has tested positive,” she says reluctantly.
The Black Lion is one pub that has stayed open this week although custom is down, says landlord Andrew McDonald. On a Thursday lunchtime, there are just two people having a drink.
He says he’d heard three pubs in town had closed since the weekend after staff members had tested positive or had come into contact with customers who had subsequently tested positive, but that was all he knew about a so-called pub crawl.
“Drinking habits tend to be people moving from pub to pub through Cardigan,” said the 59-year-old.
“The majority of people like to have a wander, that’s not just youngsters, that’s right across the board.”
Trade had been at a “reasonable level”, he added. “It’s what I would expect for the conditions we’re facing; since the two-week firebreak lockdown trade has been very slow.”
Andrew thinks the council reacted well to the reported surge in cases: “They’ve got to come down hard on it and get it under control,” he said.
In the indoor market, not everyone is so enamoured with the council response and say the road closures will only reduce passing trade. Trusscilla Lewis-Wilson owns the Cafe Carn Alw which is just inside the market entrance. There is virtually no one wandering around apart from a couple of locals enjoying a cup of tea and a workman putting up the Christmas tree.
Trusscilla agrees it’s “dead” and is critical of the pedestrianisation of the high street.
“They’ve closed the road so people can social distance but there’s nobody around to social distance with,” she says.
“I think it’s a shame that a few people wanted to have a party and then coronavirus ripped through the town. We’ve been so safe but now, people are thinking there’s no point in coming out, which is really good in a way.”
She confides that recently, even while England was locked down, she had customers come in for a meal and asked them to fill out the track and trace form. It was only after they handed back the form on the way out she noticed they put their address as having come from Croydon in London.
“Because we’re so small – there’s only 4,000 living here – you only need a few numbers to make it look like coronavirus is rampant,” she added.
“Everybody was so careful, everyone was protecting themselves, but you only need one person to do something different to rip through us.”
Truscilla added she had even gone as far as to take coins home and disinfect them.
Nearly everyone we speak to is bemused about how their corner of west Wales has gone so quickly from hero to zero. In less than a week, the high street has gone from a thriving busy one to an eerily empty thoroughfare.
Everyone is seemingly just waiting to see how many more cases are reported in the coming days and how deeply the virus has become entrenched in their community.