Coronavirus: Spikes in positive tests ‘expected’ says health chief with Peterborough not needing to enforce local lockdown rules

Peterborough remains on a government list as an area of concern as it remains above the national average for the number of cases per population.

On Friday, the city’s rolling seven-day rate of new cases of Covid-19 per 100,000 of population was 19.3 - with 39 new cases - compared to 20.8 the previous week when there were 42 new cases.

However, that figure represented the first time over the previous five days that there had been a week-on-week decline reported.

Explaining why Peterborough was seeing fluctuations, Dr Liz Robin, who is also director public health for Cambridgeshire, said: “It’s what we expect - the seven day average will change quite often.

“Sometimes organisations do testing of people who don’t have symptoms. Sometimes care homes do that - they test all staff and residents. We’re also working with businesses to test all their staff.

“We’re getting ups and downs in data but not in community transmissions. But sometimes when you do a big screening you see figures go up. You need to expect fluctuations in the figures. Some of that is chance and some of that is because organisations are doing widespread testing which shows positive cases. 

“If we do more testing, which we want to do, it helps stop bigger rises, but we will see these peaks every so often.

“We have a high baseline rate of people being tested with symptoms, but sometimes we have peculiar figures because we’re doing extra tests for people with no symptoms. We’ll do that in higher risk sectors.”

In Peterborough and Cambridgeshire the local outbreak control plan is being updated over the next fortnight with councils now able to utilise new lockdown powers from the Government.

But despite Peterborough seeing a high number of positive tests for the coronavirus, Dr Robin said there has been no need yet to bring in any additional restrictions specifically for the city.

She said: “We are currently an area of concern which means the Government is aware we have higher rate than average, but we are leading the response locally by doing good work with communities and increased testing.

“We’re not at the point where we’re expecting to have to change the rules - to be an area of intervention or have to do a significant lockdowns. That can change and we’ve seen other areas change very quickly, but today that’s not what I would think with where our figures are.

“But we are planning because we’ve seen things change rapidly in other areas.

“The new local powers are to close premises if there is a significant risk to coronavirus, or to say events can’t happen, or to close a public space.

“Some of them are ones we had previously but took a longer process. We can now use them much more quickly to contain outbreaks, but the real lockdown powers are still held nationally.

“We haven’t had to use the powers yet because the way we want to work in Peterborough is we try to work very closely with event organisers and businesses and work with shared risk assessments.

“Because we do it with care and in a collaborative way and do it with the community, we would hope to reach a consensus. Anything we’ve done so far has been about looking at risk assessment and what measures would need to be put in place so we can get to a place where that thing can go ahead or stay open.

“Sometimes we might agree the risk assessment points to the fact it wouldn’t be feasible and shouldn’t go ahead. We’ve had a number of different discussions about council facilities and external events but in a collaborative way so using the powers is a last resort.

“If you use the powers you have to inform the secretary of state and there are rights of appeal.”
Dr Robin said there are no areas in Peterborough which give her a real concern, despite higher rates in central and northern areas of the city and lower rates in rural areas.

But she stressed that public behaviour is crucial to keeping the virus under control.
“My main concern is about the public understanding,” she added.

“What will make the difference is that everyone behaves which we can’t control. Coronavirus still transmits when you get too close to people or are around too many people.

“People need to make sure they wash their hands, stay 2m apart and go for a test if they have symptoms, while not going to work and isolating.

“That’s really important, and if anyone gets contacted by the national test and trace service and are told to stay at home for 14 days, they do that.”