A senior health figure has said it’s “important that we do not drop our guard”, despite a decrease in coronavirus infection rates in Wales.
The latest headline figure, released by Public Health Wales on Monday (January 18), shows 6,852 new coronavirus cases recorded in Wales.
For comparison, there were 19,030 cases recorded in Wales between December 14 and December 20.
What does headline figure mean?
In recent months, Caerphilly Observer and other media have been reporting the headline figures from Public Health Wales.
For example, the headline figure released on Monday, January 18 saw 62 new cases of coronavirus in Caerphilly County Borough.
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 January 17 – 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 January 17.
The headline figure for Caerphilly County Borough for January 17 (which was published on January 18) is 62 new cases.
Wales was placed under ‘Alert Level 4‘ lockdown restrictions on December 20.
These restrictions will remain in place until at least January 29, when Welsh Government will complete it’s three-week review into the coronavirus situation in the country.
Darren Hughes, director of the Welsh NHS Confederation, said: “While we have seen some green shoots in some parts of Wales in terms of infection rates, it’s important that we do not drop our guard over the coming weeks.
What is the Welsh NHS Confederation?
The Welsh NHS Confederation is a body made up of the seven health boards and three NHS trusts in Wales, as well as Health Education and Improvement Wales (HEIW).
According to its website, the Welsh NHS Confederation “support[s] our members to improve health and wellbeing by working with them to deliver high standards of care for patients and best value for taxpayers’ money.
“We act as a driving force for positive change through strong representation and our policy, influencing and engagement work.”
“The number of people in critical care in Wales is still at extremely high levels, and it takes some time for a reduction in infections to translate into a reduction in the numbers we see in our hospitals.”
Mr Hughes added: “We urge the public to stick with us in order to make sure we get those numbers down – that means respecting the current restrictions as much as possible.”
These views were echoed by Dr Giri Shankar, incident director at Public Health Wales.
Dr Shankar said: “While there has been a reduction in the numbers of positive coronavirus cases in several parts of Wales, this data needs to be verified over several days before we can be sure that it is showing an established downward trend.
“Despite this, the number of cases remains extremely high in Wales and is cause for serious concern, due to the impact on NHS Wales services and the prevalence of the new, more infectious variant.”
Coronavirus vaccinations are underway across Wales, with more than 150,000 having now received their first vaccination dose.
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