Covid-19: Seven things we learned from the latest Manchester data

The city region’s mayor Andy Burnham has been sharing details of the Covid-19 situation in his weekly press conferences.

The meeting with the media did not take place this week, but the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) put the statistics on social media on Wednesday 11 August.

Here are seven takeaways from the numbers.

Manchester has one of the region’s highest case rates and it’s above the area’s figure

Manchester had the third-highest rate of positive cases of Covid-19 for the week ending 6 August, with a figure of 343 per 100,000 residents.

Only Salford and Oldham had a higher rate for the latest seven-day period.

The city’s figure is also above the rate of 304.6 recorded across Greater Manchester as a whole.

Case rates are below July levels in Manchester

The whole of Greater Manchester has seen dramatic decreases in the rates of Covid-19 in recent weeks.

In Manchester, for example, the rate has fallen to its latest rate from 577.8 per 100,000 people in the week ending 16 July.

Across the board, the decreases in rates are slowing.

The GMCA says that in some areas of the city-region rates are now increasing once again.

That is not currently the case in Manchester, with the latest rate a reduction, albeit a slight one, from the 349.1 cases per 100,000 residents recorded in the previous seven-day period (the week ending 30 July).

The picture for over-60s testing positive for Covid-19 is mixed

Last week there were falls in case rates among older Greater Manchester residents across the borough.

That is no longer the case.

In the latest week six of the 10 boroughs, including Manchester, saw an increase in over-60s testing positive for coronavirus.

Manchester’s rate among these older residents went up to 146.7 per 100,000 people in the week ending 6 August from 134.1 in the week up to 30 July.

Covid-19 is still most prevalent in younger people

Greater Manchester’s heatmaps show that younger people still account for the highest numbers of those testing positive.

Across the 10 boroughs the highest case rates were in the 16-to-29 age group.

Positive tests in care homes are going up slightly, but remain well below previous figures

In the week ending 11 August some 0.5 per cent of Greater Manchester’s care home residents either tested positive for coronavirus or showed symptoms of it.

This was a slight increase from the figure of 0.4 per cent recorded in the week up to 4 August.

While there may be an upward trend, these numbers are still way below the care home figures recorded in previous peaks of the pandemic.

The number of people in hospital with Covid-19 is going down

The GMCA says the reduction in Covid-19 case rates in recent weeks is now starting to show in the hospital data.

There were 161 admissions to the city-region’s hospitals for Covid-19 in the week up to 9 August.

This came down from 172 the previous week and 180 the week before that.

Similarly the number of in-patients diagnosed with Covid-19 has come down, with 165 in the week ending 9 August compared to 202 in the week up to 2 August and 212 in the week ending 26 July.

There were 68 patients in high-dependency or intensive care units with Covid-19 on 9 August, a fall from 70 seven days previously.

And there were 319 patients in hospital with Covid-19 occupying other beds on that date, compared to 328 on 2 August.

Progress is being made on vaccinations and residents are encouraged to get jabbed

As of 9 August, 1,874,941 first doses and 1,582,159 second doses. have been given in Greater Manchester.

Some 65 per cent of all adults have now had both jabs, including 92 per cent of over-70s.

Just under half of 18-to-49-year-olds have had both doses but GMCA said progress in that age group is being made.

The Combined Authority urged everybody to come forward for their vaccine doses when they are eligible.