Covid close to disappearing across Winchester district

Patient numbers at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital are dropping sharply and five areas of the Winchester district are now almost Covid-free, according to figures released today.

There have been tiny increases in three others.

Springvale and Itchen Abbas has seen five cases, up three (150 per cent), in the week to February 25. Colden Common and Twyford, Winchester North and Winchester Central and South have also currently got three cases in the last week so are no longer marked white on the Government map.

Winchester West: numbers tumbling

Numbers in the Winchester West hotspot, centred on the prison, are falling fast and numbers are tumbling everywhere including Whiteley, Knowle and Wickham and Swanmore Hambledon and West Meon where there had been a recent increase.

There are now 15 areas across the whole of the UK with better numbers, up from seven reported on Saturday.

The five local areas now marked white on the Government map, because they have had fewer than three cases in the seven days to February 23, are:

Alresford;

South Wonston, Sutton Scotney and Micheldever;

Winchester East;

Oliver’s Battery and Hursley;

Stanmore;

In the official figures in the week to Thursday February 25 there were 42 cases, down 48or 53 per cent for a rolling rate per 100,000 people of 33.6. The Press Association national news agency reports today that the figures to Thursday February 25 show only 15 places with a better record, mostly in the West Country.

Over the last seven days the number of reported new cases have been four (today), four, three, eight, six, six and seven. This is the lowest run of numbers since September/October.

In the hotspot Winchester West area, which includes the prison, in the seven days to February 25 there were just four new cases, a decrease of 36, a fall of 90 per cent, for a rolling week-on-week rolling rate of 40.1 per 100,000, now below the national average. It shows the outbreak at the prison has been rolled back.

In the last seven days to today (Tuesday) there have been 38 new cases in the Winchester district, down from the previous week’s 51. The figure of 38 os the lowest since Saturday October 3.

The number of Winchester district cases since the start of the pandemic is now 4,737 for a rate per 100,000 people of 3,793. One new deaths has been reported bringing the number to 182 a rate of 145.8 per 100,000 people. In the last seven days there have been six deaths. The district covers more than just the city but includes countryside from Micheldever to Denmead.

The crisis at the Hampshire Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has carried on easing.

Yesterday there were 52 patients – 33 at Basingstoke, 19 at RHCH and none at Andover. The previous Monday there were 85 patients who have tested positive for Covid-19 – 51 at Basingstoke, 34 at RHCH and none at Andover.

Across the NHS trusts in Hampshire )Hampshire, Southampton, Portsmouth, Soutern and Solent) only two Covid patients have died, both in Southampton. That brings the overall figure to 1,819.

Meanwhile, there are only seven schools in Hampshire affected by Covid, with none in the Winchester district.

There are no new cases at Winchester University and 198 since last September according to its website.

Hampshire