Rochdale appears to be ‘over the worst’ of Covid third wave - but concerns remain about rapidly spreading new strain

The worst of the Covid pandemic’s ‘third wave’ appears to be over in the Rochdale borough – but concerns remain over a ‘rapidly spreading’ new variant.

The council’s Covid-19 engagement board was given a largely optimistic update on the borough’s current situation at its February meeting.

Public health specialist Anthony Threlfall told the panel that the borough had hit its peak during the week to 10 January, when it recorded more than 840 new cases.

Although high, this was not at the levels seen in the October and November peak – and rates were now falling again.

 

 

“What we can deduce is that our third wave, which is to do with the December period, is not going to be as bad as the second wave,” he said.

“We can be very, very confident that, moving forward, we will not see a terrible increase in cases, or hospitalisations or deaths – because we have gone past our peak and cases are beginning to fall.”

Mr Threlfall added that while under pressure the hospital system was coping – albeit there were still winter pressures to consider.

And in further good news he reported that the positivity rate – the proportion of people who record a positive test result – and cases among the over-60s were also coming down.

The main boost, however, has been the ‘fantastic’ vaccination programme, which has now seen more than 37,000 people in Rochdale receive their first dose. 

Mr Threlfall said: “When you think about people having the vaccine, that should help transmission and all the people in the population that have previously had the illness we should, in my opinion, start to see our figures are improving – and almost certainly because of the vaccine programme.”

“The early signs will be a fall in hospitalisations in people over 60 – and obviously that should then tally with a fall in deaths in the longer period.”

However, despite the improving outlook, the public health boss sounded a note of caution over the new variant which emerged last year.

First identified in the south east of the country, it is understood to be up to 70% more infectious than other forms of the virus.

“The new variant has taken off very, very rapidly locally and become the dominant strain,” Mr Threlfall told the meeting.

A couple of weeks ago only 14% of cases were of this new variant. Now, it’s around 75%.

“To some extent I feel it’s quite good news that the new variant hasn’t caused a massive spike in Rochdale – in other words we are pretty confident our current measures are working to keep things under control.

“We seem to have avoided a very bad ‘third wave’, but the new variant still remains as a worry – we really do need to drive cases lower before lifting any lockdown,” he said.

Changes to testing – targeted rapid-tests were recently introduced – and workplace transmission are other possible reasons Rochdale’s infection rate isn’t falling as rapidly as health bosses would like.
 

Read more: This is where you can get a rapid Covid test in the boroughPublished: 14 January 2021

The borough can sadly also expect to see a rise in deaths over the next couple of weeks, linked to the increase in cases during late December and early January.

But with the vaccine programme kicking in the longer-term picture looks far more hopeful.

In conclusion, Mr Threlfall told the meeting: “I believe the worst is over, and I expect to see an improving picture week-by-week – the only possible problem are these new variants.

“It’s absolutely crucial vaccine uptake remains high and it’s crucial we promote this in all population groups.”

The remote meeting of Rochdale’s Covid-19 engagement board was held on Wednesday 3 February.

Nick Statham, Local Democracy Reporter