LevellerLive

This week, to 23 February, there were 3,368 new confirmed cases of COVID 19 in Somerset. That leaves the weekly COVID infection numbers falling in Somerset for each of the last 4 weeks.

But as we pointed out last week, that is still nearly a thousand more infections than on 8 December. The week when Johnson implemented Plan B because of the rapid spread of Omicron.

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

• 3,368 to 23 February
• 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 quite a few districts in our patch of Somerset with a caseload below 500 per 100,000 population. Both Frome and Wellington have fallen below the 500 per 100,000 mark. Infection rates in all of our towns except Crewkerne have fallen this week.

Once again the hotspot is Taunton but with 600 cases reported against 825 new cases reported last week. In Bridgwater, cases have declined again, 291 new cases were reported compared to 365 last week. Similarly in Yeovil. Cases have fallen to 347 this week compared with last week’s reported numbers 446. Frome has escaped the extreme highs and lows of infection outbreaks seen elsewhere. Even so the latest figure of 129 new cases compares to 170 cases reported last week. That’s a significant drop and puts Frome’s caseload lower than in Chard, a town half its size. Case numbers are falling Chard too though. There were 130 new cases reported this week compared with 166 last week.

In Crewkerne though there has even been a small rise in cases this week. 71 new cases were reported compared with 68 last week and 66 the week before.

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 23 February for cases (although different dates are used for some of the other figures – for instance deaths are reported to 11 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 9 deaths reported. 5 deaths were in hospital, 3 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 reduced again to 0.8-1.0 this week. For once that seems to reflect what is happening on the ground. With an R number below 1 we would expect infection numbers to be falling

Whilst the vaccination program is now moving at a snail’s pace. There was barely any change in numbers from those we reported last week.

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