Fewer people WITH Covid are going for tests, making Flintshire figures ‘look better’ says council chief executive

There has been a steady fall in the number of reported Covid cases in Flintshire over the past two weeks.

But the chief executive of Flintshire Council, Colin Everett has said one reason for the drop in cases is likely to be because fewer people who have contracted Covid are going for tests.

Figures published by Public Health Wales show a further 33 positive Covid cases have been reported in Flintshire today.

The 7-day average figure – per 100,000 population – for the week to July 31 in Flintshire is 167, a fall of around 30 per cent on the previous week.

During a Flintshire Council Covid recovery committee meeting held today, Colin Everett said “As of today, our incidence rate [per 100,000 population in the 7 days to July 31] is 167.2, we had a height of over 800 [7-day rate] some months back.

He said: “It’s going down bit by bit, the top four counties in Wales – of which we are one – are in North Wales. Betsi [North Wales Health Board] figures are quite high up in Wales.”

Mr Everett said: “Those figures don’t sound particularly high compared with where we were.”

“TTP (contact tracing) teams are still busy, not quite under the demand there was, self isolation rule changes will help.”

“I think though, what’s important to recognise, and Public Health Wales people, if they were with us would confirm this, one of the reasons is we’re seeing a lower presence of test positives because far fewer people are now testing.” He said.

He said: “People are feeling more confident, they’ve been vaccinated, it’s summer, people want to return to their normal lives.”

“If you actually look at our test figures in Flintshire, only three weeks ago, it was just under 3000 a week being tested, in the last week it was just over 2000. It’s gone down from 2983 to 2070, about a third.”

“The more people who test, the more positives that we’ll get, the fewer people that test, then the less known cases.” He said.

“If people have very few symptoms, they might not even think it’s COVID, [they think] it’s hay fever, [or think] it’s a summer cold, or they’re asymptomatic and show nothing.”

“If they’re not presenting to medics, then there of no health risk themselves but they could be transmitting to other people.”

“I’m not in any way being negative, but the truth is the figures look better than they are because fewer people are being tested.”

“Our positivity rate is still 13 per cent, in other words, 13 out of every 100 People who are tested have a positive result so that’s pretty high.”

“The health service is under increasing pressure not because of COVID, just because of normal demand and services being restored.”

“They’re starting to show some stress signs in hospitals, that’s not because of COVID itself.”

Mr Everett said forecasts show for the next few months, “the most likely scenario, and a worst case scenario, were actually running on figures between the two.”

“The most likely is the one that scientists thought might happen, we’re still running above it.”

“North Wales is the odd one out in Wales and our figures are generally higher because of the interconnection with northwest England.”

“The next few months are going to be like this, we’ll be seeing the present number of cases, but it will become more and more manageable.” He said.

Mr Everett added: “I’m actually more concerned now about things like the workforce issues and the economic challenges ahead.”