NEW variants, school outbreaks and households transmissions were behind the spike in coronavirus cases in Bracknell Forest in November and December, the council’s top public health chief has revealed.
The borough’s weekly rate for confirmed covid cases per 100,000 peaked at 847.8 on January 1, 2021, having increased eight-fold in the space of a single month.
England came out of its second lockdown on December 2 but coronavirus rates in Bracknell Forest and other parts of the South-East increased so dramatically that the borough and other nearby local authority areas were plunged into the government’s top tier of covid restrictions by mid-December.
Surge testing at The Mall in Cribbs Causeway, one of two sites in South Gloucestershire, after two cases of the Brazilian variant of coronavirus were identified in South Gloucestershire. Picture date: Monday March 1, 2021. PA Photo. Officials have
Three months on from the peak of the spread in Bracknell Forest, the council’s top public health expert told the News where the spike in cases came from.
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Charlotte Pavitt said: “The cases per 100,000 rose significantly from the middle of November up until the Christmas period.
“And now in hindsight, it's likely that that was a result of the new variants. And that was the Kent variant that we knew was more transmissible, so easier to pass on and easier to catch.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock during a media briefing in Downing Street, London, on coronavirus (Covid-19). Picture date: Monday March 1, 2021. PA Photo. See PA story HEALTH Coronavirus. Photo credit should read: PA Video/PA Wire
“And what happened was that we had a number of school outbreaks that occurred at that time. And ordinarily, within a school outbreak, we close the bubble, and that stops the outbreak.
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“But what we found that actually, with that variable being more transmissible, the outbreak took hold quicker, across several schools.
“And then when individuals were self-isolating back at home, they then transmitted the virus to their households.
Members of the Armed Forces conduct a Covid-19 asymptomatic test on a sample from a member of the public at a community hall at the Central Mosque in Glasgow as a Covid-19 asymptomatic testing centre opens there today, as lockdown measures for mainland
“Essentially, that's what rose those rates up significantly.”
Bracknell Forest's weekly rate of confirmed coronavirus cases now stands at 53.9, as reported Thursday, March 4.
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