Almost 200 Covid-19 cases were recorded in one Wirral ward in just a week, showing how quickly the virus can rip through communities.
The most recent numbers broken down so finely, which cover the week up to January 7, show 198 cases were registered in Moreton West and Saughall Massie at an extraordinary rate of 1,406 per 100,000.
That is more than quadruple the 46 cases at a rate of 327 per 100,000 recorded in the ward just two weeks previously.
Moreton West and Saughall Massie had both the highest rate and the highest case numbers in Wirral, but infections went up in every single part of the borough during the first week of 2021.
Other particularly high numbers were seen in Upton (190), Claughton (183), Oxton (170) and Wallasey (167).
These four wards, plus Moreton West and Saughall Massie itself, Hoylake and Meols, and Bebington, had infection rates in excess of 1,000 per 100,000, a staggeringly high figure.
The weekly ward-by-ward numbers cover the seven days up to January 7, just one day short of January 8, the date which appears to have been the peak of the virus in the Liverpool City Region.
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Between the end of the second lockdown on December 5 and Christmas Day, the overall infection rate for Wirral increased from 58 per 100,000 to 214 per 100,000.
During the Christmas period this rise got out of control, soaring from 214 to a peak of 980, the figure recorded on January 8.
In the three days of borough-level numbers available since then, that figure has fallen to 867.
It is too early to tell if this fall can be sustained, but it will need to be if pressure on local hospitals is to ease in the coming months.
On the most recent numbers, which only go up to January 5, Wirral’s hospitals were treating 137 people for coronavirus, the most it has ever treated at any time during the pandemic.
That figure is likely to have grown in the meantime given the time lag between people catching the virus and getting ill, combined with the rise in Wirral's infections in recent weeks.
Across the rest of our region, cases also surged over the Christmas period and up to January 8, but are now beginning to fall.
In Knowsley, the worst hit borough in the Liverpool City Region, the infection rate was 1,461 per 100,000 in the week up to January 11, down from 1,279 three days earlier.
Halton had a similar pattern, registering a fall from 1,304 to 1,041, while Liverpool’s infection rate decreased from 1,087 to 930.
In Sefton, the infection rate is now 966, also down from 1,114, while St Helens continues to have the lowest rate in the region at 774, down from 866.
