Impact of local lockdown could start to show in local coronavirus figures – as local tracing hits 95% success rate

The coming week could start to see any impact of the local lockdown beginning to show in the daily coronavirus figures, the councillor overseeing the local Test Trace Protect (TTP) operation has said.

Wrexham has been under tighter restrictions for over a month, with a local lockdown in place since October 1 and a two week Wales wide firebreak ending on Monday 9th November.

However despite the measures over the last month the area has seen a high positive proportions of tests being reported by Public Health Wales (PHW).

This peaked at 102 on Monday, however PHW said there had been a 24 hour lag recording some cases and other data issues.

This week we asked we asked councillor Hugh Jones, Wrexham Council’s lead member for communities, partnerships, public protection and community safety, and the person heading up the local Test Trace Protect effort, about the recent high positive proportions of tests for the area – that yesterday was 16.7% and on Monday 24.8%.

Cllr Jones told us that the tighter measures would take time to show in the daily figures – demonstrating the lag such measures has on affecting confirmed case figures, admissions and deaths.

Cllr Jones told us: “Our current position is we are the eighth highest in terms of the the rate per hundred thousand in Wales, and that, obviously, is a concern, because in terms of population density, we sit around about fourteenth most densely populated council area in Wales.

“One of the interesting things will be, as before the national firebreak we had a local lockdown, because of the delay in the impact of the lockdown has on the figures, I would hope that as we move into this week, we will begin to see the impact of the initial local lockdown on the figures.”

He was cautious in seeing any immediate or clear cut figure, noting the opening of the Wrexham based testing centre at the Memorial Hall last month.

He said: “We did then start to test more locally, previously the test centre that was available was in Deeside, and for key workers in the Maelor, but once once you have a more local testing centre, that is likely to find more local cases.”

“So the next few days are going to be interesting in terms of the figures, because as I say, we should begin to see if that previous local lockdown was successful.

“But, the ‘health warning’ on that is that those figures may be skewed by the fact that we’ve we’ve opened the testing centre.”

With news this week that just over 20 miles away in Liverpool a mass testing project could take place, where everyone who lives or works there would be offered tests regardless of symptoms and then ongoing testing in an attempt to clamp down on the virus, we asked if that could be useful for Wrexham and Welsh local authority areas as well.

Cllr Jones said: “I think anything that in the neighbouring authorities make the authorities safer will help and support those authorities that surround them.

“Particularly, because social care or health care is still one of those essential things that you can travel for.

“So there will be a limited amount of travel between the two areas. The second thing is for the whole country, it will be a very positive learning exercise to see how effective it is.

“If it is effective, then hopefully, those services will be available across the whole of the United Kingdom, not just in Merseyside, but it’s a positive move.”

He also updated on the Trace and Protect effort of the ‘Track Trace Protect’ effort, which unlike England is being run in Wales by local authorities.

Cllr Jones said: “In terms of Trace and Protect, which of course we as a council have directly responsibility for, first of all the level of cooperation across the border and within the whole of Wales is really working very effectively.

“We have got a very, very good track and trace and protect system with a 95% contact rate, which is really excellent.

“When we when we’ve been under pressure other authorities in Wales, North Wales and South Wales have helped us with tracing. Equally, we’ve done the same with other authorities.”

“Across the border it is the same and working is seamless, our officers are working across all county and national borders. So from the trace and protect aspect of it, it’s working very positively and very effectively.”