Weekly Coronavirus cases have started to decrease for the first time in months, with just 283 more individuals testing positive in Loughborough – down from 474 from the week before.
Of the positive cases confirmed last week across Loughborough, just 91 were located in the Loughborough University area, down from 202 the week prior. This sees the town have a case rate of 400 per 100,000 people.
This reduction in cases is despite the fact Loughborough’s Tier 2 designation only happened in the last 2 days of this week of data, meaning that cases were reducing in the Town and University before either the new restrictions, or the national lockdown were implemented.
The University has separately reported 324 positive cases within the last 10 days amongst the student population through their ‘Connect & Protect’ system. This is down from 511 cases reported last week.
Elsewhere in Loughborough, Storer & Queens Park (the main part of the student triangle) has seen cases reduce to 74, similar numbers to those seen at the start of October.
Shelthorpe & Woodthorpe and the Outwoods all both seen steep declines in their weekly case count, with both seeing around half of the cases they saw in the previous week of data.
A similar pattern has been seen across the entirety of Charnwood, with 662 new cases reported last week, down from 914 the week before.
Last Saturday, a Tier 2 lockdown was imposed on the borough, with those living within Charnwood barred from meeting socially with friends and family indoors in any setting, unless they lived with them or have formed a support bubble.
But this was quickly superseded by a national lockdown, which came into force this week, with all people barred from leaving their houses unless for essential reasons, or to meet outdoors with one other person.
These are expected to last until the first week of December, but there has been speculation about whether this could continue into the Christmas period, with worry from the student community about whether they will be able to return home.
One method the University has suggested they may employ to allow this is to provide students with a Covid test before leaving (e.g. because they live at home with vulnerable people), at no cost from the University.
Over the lockdown period, the University will remain open and teaching will continue to current arrangements. The Library and other academic facilities will remain open.
Cases amongst student age groups are clearly declining, with cases reducing across the board after a clear peak in Week 43 (week beginning 19/10/2020).
This will bring much-needed reassurance to the residents of Loughborough and Charnwood – with the rise of cases in older age brackets the initial reason for the Tier 2 lockdown.
Label will be updating the figures on our Loughborough Coronavirus Map every weekday with the latest figures, and will post weekly updates on the latest situation across the town each Thursday.
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Notes on Methodology
Cases at the local-level are split into Middle Super Output Areas (MSOAs) – small areas with around 7,200 average population.
Counts of between 0 and 2 cases per MSOA are shown as ‘0-2’, to protect the identity of those who have tested positive in that area, and therefore no data is available until cases hit 3 in each MSOA.
Data is collected by Public Health England here, and is updated every 7 days for each calendar week, at a 5 day delay. Weekly data is now published on Fridays. You can download a copy of the latest data for Loughborough here. Data reproduced under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
