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The Canberra Times
The Canberra Times
National
Andrew Brown

Which Canberra suburbs are being tested the most?

Coronavirus testing being carried out at the drive-through clinic at EPIC. Picture: Karleen Minney

Residents living in Canberra's north are more likely to have been tested for COVID-19 than their counterparts south of Lake Burley Griffin.

New figures have revealed the number of people in each Canberra suburb who have been tested for coronavirus, with those living in Moncrieff leading the charge.

The data from ACT Health showed the Gungahlin suburb had 263.64 tests carried out per 1000 people, based on the most recent government population data.

The Belconnen suburb of Lawson was second on the list with a rate of 211 tests per 1000 people.

The top five suburbs were rounded out by Hall with 135 tests per 1000 people, Coombs with 112 and Hume on 99.

The data only takes in the number of tests recorded by suburb and does not state whether one resident in that suburb had been tested multiple times.

Of the top 10 suburbs in terms of testing rates per 1000 people, seven of them were in Canberra's north.

Those suburbs included Dickson, Campbell, Ainslie and Hackett.

The ACT Health figures show more than 26,000 tests were carried out across Canberra up to June 29 with the territory's entire rate of testing at 65.22 tests per 1000 people.

There were fewer suburbs across the ACT that had a testing rate per 1000 people that was greater than the territory average, with 47 suburbs registering a higher testing rate compared to 56 suburbs below the rate.

Of the suburbs above the ACT average, 24 are in Canberra's north compared to 23 in the south.

Those living in Civic had the lowest testing rate out of any Canberra suburb with just 22 people per 1000 residents being tested.

The next lowest was Acton with a rate of 31, followed by Majura on 33 and Belconnen on 37.

As the largest suburb in Canberra, Kambah residents have carried out the most tests with almost 1000 individual tests recorded for the area.

However, that suburb is below the average for the ACT, registering 63 tests per 1000 people in the suburb.

While some large suburbs such as Ngunnawal were above the ACT average, recording 68 tests per 1000 people, most large residential areas such as Harrison, Gordon and Wanniassa were well below.

Since coronavirus testing began in the ACT, more than 33,000 tests have been carried out.

Of those 111 have been confirmed to have COVID-19 with three people dying from the virus.

While no data has been provided on the number of confirmed cases by suburb, health figures show Tuggeranong has the most number of confirmed cases with 23, followed by Gungahlin and the inner south with 17 each.

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