LevellerLive

This week, to 16 February, there were 4,213 new confirmed cases of COVID 19 in Somerset. That may look good compared to the last 2 weeks. It certainly is tempting to suggest infections might be heading in the right direction. But consider this. Johnson implemented Plan B because of the rapid spread of Omicron on 8 December 2021. Infections in Somerset that week were just 2,521. Today we have no restrictions at all, yet infections are nearly double that level.

The table below tracks the overall weekly number of infections in Somerset in recent weeks.

• 4,213 to 16 February
• 5,631 to 9 February
• 10,133 to 2 February
• 5,393 to 26 January
• 4,558 to 19 January
• 6,476 to 12 January
• 6,618 to 5 January
• 4,289 to 29 December
• 3,130 to 22 December
• 2,804 to 15 December
• 2,521 to 8 December
• 2,534 to 1 December
• 2,399 to 24 November
• 2,570 to 17 November
• 2,283 to 10 November
• 3,166 to 3 November

There are now two districts in the patch of Somerset we cover with a caseload below 500 per 100,000 population. Both in rural areas outside our bigger towns.

Once again the hotspot is Taunton but with 825 cases reported against 993 new cases reported last week. The numbers maybe lower, but remain significantly above pre February levels and are not coming down rapidly.

In Bridgwater, cases have declined much more rapidly. 365 new cases were reported compared to 572 last week. Similarly in Yeovil. Cases have fallen to 446 this week compared with last week’s reported numbers 671. Frome has escaped the extreme highs and lows of infection outbreaks seen elsewhere. Even so the latest figure of 170 new cases compares to 276 cases reported last week. That’s a significant drop and puts Frome’s caseload on a par with Chard, a town half its size. Case numbers are falling Chard too though. There were 166 new cases reported this week compared with 210 last week.

In Crewkerne though there has been no notable fall this week. 68 new cases were reported compared with 66 last week.

Before we go any further however, our usual health warning about the figures.  Unlike NHS data these numbers include care homes and incidences of COVID 19 “at home”. The data is prepared to 16 February for cases (although different dates are used for some of the other figures – for instance deaths are reported to 4 February). The reason for this delay is to keep the numbers accurate – or should we say as accurate as possible. The daily totals published by the NHS are subject to constant revision, as not unreasonably, the data is constantly being updated to improve accuracy. It is also worth noting that the SCC area does not include North Somerset (so Weston hospital) or BANES (So the RUH in Bath) both of which are separate administrative areas.

This week there were 16 deaths reported. A jump from last week. However given the recent high case load numbers, this was probably to be expected. Omicron may not be as infectious per se However with such massive number of infections the apparently high death toll is actually a relatively small percentage of total cases. 11 deaths were in hospital, 5 in a care home setting and one at home.

Over the last week hospitalisations were similar to last week. Between 60 and 70 people were in hospital with COVID in either Yeovil or Musgrove. The numbers still remain well below the peak at the end of October when the delta variant was prevalent.

The R number has been redcued again to 0.9-1.1 this week. Still completely out of kilter with what is happening onn the ground, it would suggest case numbers should be steady. In fact they fell significantly compared to the last fortnight.

Whilst the vaccination program is now moving at a snail’s pace. 70% of the under 16s have now been vaccinated. However the percentage of the population jabbed three times (with a booster) or twice has barely moved since last week. Nevertheless with 93.9 percent of the 18+ population vaccinated twice there is inevitably less of a panic to complete the job.

As ever here is the full dataset so you can form your own conclusions: