Weekly Coronavirus cases have decreased dramatically on the previous 7 days, with just 55 more individuals testing positive in Loughborough – down from 162 from the week before, and 279 a fortnight ago.
Of the positive cases confirmed last week across Loughborough, just 4 were located in the Loughborough University area, down from 22 the week before.
The new data comes after the entire county rose into Tier Three post-lockdown, despite the Loughborough area now registering just 78 cases per 100,000 – levels not seen since before Freshers.
Overall, Charnwood now reports a rate of 123, which is well below the national average of 154 – both of which are down on the previous week.
As lockdown ends, residents across the county are being urged to support their local shops as businesses, but to stay safe while they’re out and about.
Cllr Shona Rattray, the Council’s lead member for business support, said that “the retail sector has been hit hard by the pandemic so this is a good opportunity for people to offer their support by getting Christmas gifts and goods from local shops if they can.”
In more good news, the University has separately reported just 10 positive cases in the last 10 days amongst the student population through their ‘Connect & Protect’ system, down from 45 cases reported a week ago.
The entirety of the Loughborough are has seen a consistent drop in cases, with one area (Dishley & Hathern) not reporting a single case.
Elsewhere in Loughborough, Shelthorpe and Woodthorpe has seen a dramatic case drop over the last fortnight – down to 12 cases from 70 cases, with other large decreases seen in the Lemyngton and Storer areas.
Across Charnwood, 227 new cases were reported last week, down 194 cases compared to the week before.
The news follows the announcements that a successful vaccine has been approved in the UK, with delivery expected soon in the new Loughborough vaccination site at the council offices.
The Council last week said that that they “will do anything we can to support the battle against this virus” and “would be proud to play our part in the vaccination programme.”
With the lockdown finally having a serious effect on the numbers, the question has now turned to when the area will be dropped to Tier 2, with cases in the district sitting just below the national average.
It it likely that more cases will be identified with the new lateral flow tests which have been implemented on campus, which all students are encouraged to take before they return home for Christmas.
This has pre-empted the end of in-person teaching in both Loughborough and London from this Wednesday, in line with Government rules.
At that point, all lectures and seminars will move online.
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.
- VACCINNATION CENTRE: Loughborough to be one of the first
- UNIVERSITY TO STOP IN-PERSON TEACHING: Find out more about the end of term
- COVID COOKING: Why not warm yourself up with some Rock Cakes?
- HOME FOR CHRISTMAS: The University COO updates students
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.
