Halton is the site of the UK’s “only major outbreak” of coronavirus, according to a scientific study run by King’s College London.
The King’s College study put the borough on its “watch list” last week after it showed a significant rise in people reporting coronavirus symptoms via its app.
But on Thursday, Professor Tim Spector, who is in charge of the study, said Halton was the only area reporting a significant outbreak of the disease.
Prof Spector tweeted: “Our weekly Covid App report is reassuring. [The estimated number of] new cases is 1,433 for UK which is down from last week and similar to early July.
“No sign of surges on coasts etc as yet. Halton in Merseyside only major outbreak with 1 in 300 affected.”
The study, which has been a reliable indicator of changes in coronavirus cases and which predicted recent outbreaks in Manchester and elsewhere, now estimates that there are 340 cases per 100,000 residents in Halton, up from 270 last week.
This increase has sent Halton to the top of the study’s watch list. St Helens has also been added to the watch list, one place below Halton, with an estimated 250 cases per 100,000 residents.
Both boroughs have now overtaken Blackburn with Darwen, which was placed back into lockdown last month.
The estimates reported by the King’s College study, which uses an app developed by health science company Zoe to track symptomatic Covid-19 cases, are significantly above the official case figures for both boroughs.
Keep up to date with coronavirus cases in your area by adding your postcode below
For the week ending August 9, official figures showed Halton had just 11 new cases, up from seven the week before. St Helens recorded 28 in the week ending August 9, up from just six the week before.
Explaining the difference, Prof Spector said: “The app methods are different to the government who rely on ad-hoc testing and have no way of doing regional surveys.
“So you should expect them to differ as they will be more detailed in some areas but miss many others. We are essentially testing over a million people a week.”
He also said that while the absolute numbers of confirmed cases in Halton may be low, the rate of cases per 100,000 people was much higher than many other parts of the country, which was a cause for concern.
