Covid-19 in Manchester: seven things we learned from this week’s data

The most up-to-date statistics on Covid-19 in Greater Manchester have been released.

The latest data that is shared with journalists at the press conferences held by the city-region’s mayor Andy Burnham was posted on social media on Thursday (7 October).

We took a delve into the numbers, and here are seven things we learned.

Manchester’s rate of Covid-19 cases is the lowest in the city-region

Manchester had a rate of 217.2 cases of Covid-19 per 100,000 residents in the week ending 1 October.

This was the lowest recorded among the 10 local authorities in Greater Manchester.

It is also well below the rate for the city-region as a whole, which was 328.5 cases per 100,000 residents.

This, the Mayoral Twitter account said, was broadly similar to the national average.

There is a mixed picture across Greater Manchester

The situation in the 10 boroughs of the city-region varies considerably both in terms of the overall rate of Covid-19 and the week-to-week picture.

Trafford currently has the highest levels of positive cases, with 529.9 per 100,000 people in the week ending 1 October.

Stockport is also over 500 cases per 100,00 residents.

Covid-19 rates went down in four of the 10 boroughs compared to the previous week (ending 24 September).

But it went up in six, including a significant spike in Trafford from 434 per 100,000 residents in the week ending 24 September to the figure of just below 530 per 100,000 people in the latest week up to 1 October.

The situation among over-60s is mixed as well

It is much the same among Greater Manchester’s older residents, with some positive and some negative aspects to the data.

Overall cases rose slightly in the latest week up to 30 September compared to the previous one.

The rate across the city-region went up from 149.2 cases per 100,000 older residents to 157.5.

However, across the board case rates have fallen from where they were at the start of September.

Younger people account for the highest numbers of cases

The heat maps used to track Covid-19 levels among different age groups show that across Greater Manchester the highest rates are among younger people.

While the highest case numbers are among 0-to-15-year-olds, the rates themselves vary across the city-region.

The darkest areas in the heat maps for this age group are found in Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan.

Levels of Covid-19 in care homes remain steady

The latest week of data, ending 6 October, showed 0.6% of care home residents in Greater Manchester had confirmed Covid-19 or showed symptoms of it.

This was a slight rise from 0.5% recorded in the previous two weeks.

The Mayoral Twitter account described the situation as steady and said the figures were lower than the peaks in previous waves of the novel coronavirus.

Hospitalisations are showing a slow decline

The data appears to be showing that the number of people in Greater Manchester’s hospitals with Covid-19 is slowly going down.

In the latest week up to 3 October, admissions of people with a confirmed case of coronavirus in the 14 days before they went into hospital went down by one, from 110 to 109.

In-patient diagnoses went up by one in the same time period, following a reduction in the week up to 19 September.

Bed occupancy with Covid-19 has gone down in the most recent figures up to 3 October, as has the number of people with the coronavirus in high-dependency or intensive care units.

More than 70% of adults have received both doses of a vaccine

As of 4 October 1,959,175 first doses and 1,781,729 second doses of Covid-19 vaccines had been administered in Greater Manchester.

Some 72% of adults had had both their doses of a vaccine by that date.

Among over-70s the rate for being double jabbed was 93%.

Vaccines are now being rolled out to 12 to 15-year-olds through schools.