Swansea is seeing record-breaking amount of Covid in the last week driven by the omicron variant.
Though not as rapid as Cardiff, the growth in Swansea is still significant. The rise has prompted First Minister Mark Drakeford to impose Covid restrictions on several parts of society including hospitality, events, and large scale mixing in homes.
WalesOnline has taken a look at the latest Covid data for Swansea to give you a picture of the current situation.
Where are the areas with the highest cases in Swansea?
At the moment there are four areas of Swansea with a Covid rate per 100,000 of population above 1,000. These areas are:
- West Cross 1,444.60
- Sketty 1,353.10
- Mumbles & Newton 1,133.80
- Llanmorlais & Three Crosses 1,103.00
Mayals & Bishopston is also very close to 1,000 with an infection rate of 998.
What about the rest of the city?
Cockett has easily the lowest rates of Covid at 373 per 100,000 of population with Clydach & Mawr (514) and Morriston South (500) the next lowest.
Across the whole city there are 12 areas with an infection rate above 800.
To fully appreciate how quickly the situation has deteriorated in Swansea we can look at the number of new cases per day. The graph below shows the amount of cases found in the city up to December 21.
In the last few days Swansea has seen over 400 new cases in a single 24-hour period. In the wave last winter cases in a single day barely went above 300. You can see the full data for every area of Swansea at the bottom of this article.
What is the situation in hospitals?
At present the Covid situation is quite stable in the Swansea Bay Health Board area.
The number of patients in hospital (either acute or general beds) was over 100 in mid November but has fell steadily and stabilized about 75 (though there has was a jump of 17 between December 20 and 22).
It is worth bearing in mind that it typically takes three weeks for a spike in Covid cases to turn into hospitalisations and omicron only really got going in the Swansea area in the last week so any rise in hospital admittance is unlikely to show up yet.
There are still question marks over how large this increase in serious illness is likely to be with some tentative signs that omicron is less severe than previous variants and increasing levels of vaccination within the community.
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