Covid-19 cases are beginning to fall in Wirral, after several weeks of alarming increases.
In the three days from January 8 to January 11, the rate of infections in the borough over a seven-day period fell from 982 to 894.
That is the first time Wirral’s rate has gone down since the day after the second lockdown, which ended on December 2, and is a hugely welcome development.
However, there is a long way to go if Wirral is to return to the low level of cases seen at the start of last month.
Between December 3, just after the rules were relaxed, and Christmas Day, the borough’s infection rate went up from 52 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 982, the figure recorded on January 8.
But if the pattern of falling case numbers can continue over a period of weeks and months, in combination with a rollout of the vaccine, there is light at the end of the tunnel in Wirral.
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Looking at the breakdown of cases at a ward-by-ward level, the huge rise seen in several communities over Christmas is laid bare.
At this scale the numbers cover the week up to January 7 and show that 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.
On the latest numbers there are 252 people in Wirral’s hospitals suffering from Covid-19, showing the impact a rise in cases has.
Across the rest of our region, a slightly more promising picture is also emerging.
In Liverpool, between January 8 and January 11, the seven-day infection rate fell from 1,064 per 100,000 to 964 per 100,000.
Sefton’s rate was also 1,119 on January 8, but came down to 1,034 by January 11.
A much clearer fall, from 1,470 to 1,179 was recorded in Knowsley, while St Helens’ rate fell from 868 to 823 in the same period.
This pattern will need to be sustained if Merseyside is to get the virus back under control.
