Birmingham City Council’s dashboard of Covid-19 information for the week ending 2nd April can be seen here. The impact of the national lockdown continues to reduce case numbers. The % of positive tests and the overall rate of cases has fallen in all ages and ethnic groups. The average daily Covid admissions to Birmingham’s hospitals has once again fallen, to around 17 new cases a day. Moseley’s case rate has dropped by a further 15% since the previous fortnight.
The highest case rates are now in secondary school children and this is why testing for schools and families is so important and it is important to follow the rules as we know that infection rates in younger age groups can spread into older age groups unless we stay on top of cases.
Most of the identified contacts of cases are still within the same household or household visitors. Spread often happens in the household but it isn’t inevitable, and www.germdefence.org can help.
We also continue to see clusters in workplaces and it is important that all employers take action to protect staff, including regular testing. Employers with more than 10 staff can get tests directly from the government, and those with less than 10 staff can get them from the BCC testing sites.
Testing rates have significantly decreased this week; some of this is because there was less testing in schools due to the Easter holiday closures, but this doesn’t explain the full drop in testing, and we’re encouraged to continue being tested. See our Public Health Guidance article below for more details on accessing tests.