Twelve new cases of coronavirus have been recorded in Caerphilly County Borough.
The latest headline figure was released by Public Health Wales (PHW) on Friday (September 25). The figure shows how many new cases PHW was made aware of on Thursday (September 24).
Welsh Government’s Health Minister Vaughan Gething recently praised Caerphilly residents for following the local lockdown restrictions that have been imposed on the borough since September 8.
Speaking at a Welsh Government press briefing on Monday, September 21, Mr Gething said: “We have seen a dip in cases in Caerphilly. That’s important because it does show what we said at the outset – that it would take about two weeks for the restrictions to start to have an effect.”
Meanwhile, the latest figures show 320 new cases reported across Wales – with three deaths.
Of these 320 cases, 48 were recorded in Rhondda Cynon Taf, 35 in Blaenau Gwent, 31 in Bridgend County, 20 in Merthyr Tydfil County and eight in Newport.
In Cardiff, 29 new cases have been recorded, with 28 in Swansea. It has been confirmed by Welsh Government that both these areas will come under a local lockdown from 6pm on Sunday (September 27).
It has also been announced that Llanelli will enter a local lockdown from Saturday (September 26). This will be the first local lockdown that doesn’t affect an entire county, with the remainder of Carmarthenshire remaining exempt from local lockdown rules for the time being.
In the last seven days, there have been 64 new cases of coronavirus recorded in Caerphilly County Borough.
In that same time period, Rhondda Cynon Taf has seen 310 new cases reported, with 141 in Blaenau Gwent, 139 in Cardiff, 139 in Swansea, 114 in Bridgend County, 102 in Merthyr Tydfil County and 85 in Carmarthenshire.
A temporary coronavirus testing centre has been set up in the car park at New Tredegar Business Park, with the temporary testing centre at Caerphilly Leisure Centre set to remain open until September 28.
The test centre at the council offices in Tredomen has now closed.
What does ‘headline figure’ mean?
In recent weeks, Caerphilly Observer and other media have been reporting the headline figures from Public Health Wales.
For example, the headline figure released on Friday, September 25, saw 12 new positive tests reported.
This figure however is not entirely as it seems at first glance. It is the number of new cases PHW were aware of as of September 24 – the day before.
Even then, this figure is still not what you think it ought to be as it includes positive tests that may have occurred a few days prior, but that PHW were only made aware of on September 24.
The headline figure for Caerphilly County Borough for September 24 (which was published on September 25) is 12 new cases.
The latest spreadsheet containing the detailed data, which can be downloaded from the PHW stats website, actually shows no new cases for September 23.
This is because the 12 cases were actually tested for a few days prior, but PHW only became aware of them on September 24. We will have a far more accurate reflection of what has been going on in the last few days over the course of the next week.
However, the figures do show the week up to September 20 saw 122 new cases of coronavirus recorded in Caerphilly County Borough. The week prior to that (September 7 to 13) saw 216.
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