Coronavirus cases have fallen in most parts of Sefton this week

Coronavirus cases have fallen in Sefton for the third week running.

Latest figures show that the infection rate in the borough is 283 cases per 100,000 people – and in one week (October 26 to November 1) there were 783 new cases.

This means the infection rate across Sefton has fallen by more than a third (36%) in two weeks.

Liverpool City Region was recently the worst affected part of the country for new infections, prompting it to be the first to be placed under the new highest Tier 3 restrictions.

Recent data suggests those restrictions may be starting to have an effect on case numbers, with a fall in the infection rate over a couple of weeks now.

Knowsley still has Merseyside’s highest rate – 366 per 100,000.

Liverpool’s rate is now 332, while Wirral has the Liverpool City Region’s lowest infection rate, at 234 per 100,000.

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For data collection purposes, Sefton is divided into 38 neighbourhoods.

Thirty five of these saw a decrease in coronavirus case numbers.

Birkdale, however, saw a 53% increase – with the number of positive cases rising from 19 to 29 in a week.

Ford saw its cases rise by 25% – from 24 to 30.

Orrell is currently Sefton’s worst impacted neighbourhood with an infection rate of 581 per 100,000 people.

This is a jump from an infection rate of 468 in the previous week.

The least impacted of Sefton’s neighbourhoods is currently the area known as Ainsdale East, where there were just four new cases reported over seven days.

This means the neighbourhood’s infection rate is currently 60 per 100,000 – almost five times less than Sefton’s average infection rate.

At a cabinet meeting this week, a senior councillor said a government “lie” about financial support during the pandemic has left Sefton Council facing a £21m black hole.

Cabinet members received an update on the financial impact the pandemic continues to have.

Cabinet member for communities and housing Cllr Trish Hardy said the government “lied” when they said they would do “whatever it takes” to help councils who would struggle financially due to their responses to the pandemic.

Cllr Hardy continued: “We are still suffering the consequences of that lie.”

So far, the council has received £23.7m from central government – but has said this isn’t nearly enough to cover its pandemic expenditure.