Coronavirus latest: One death in Central Bedfordshire plus 221 new infections last week

The number of cases increased by 51 in the week up to October 25, compared to the previous seven days.

The changing patterns of the spread of the infection were relayed to Central Bedfordshire Council’s health and wellbeing board by its assistant director of public health, Celia Shohet.

“The number of positive Covid-19 cases is increasing quite significantly in Central Bedfordshire,” she told the board.

“It was relatively stable during August and early September,” she said.

“But since towards the end of September it has been increasing quite significantly.

“We’ve had more than 200 cases in the last week. Hotspots for Central Bedfordshire have been around Caddington area, Stotfold and Arlesey in the last fortnight.

“It changes weekly, but this is the most recent picture geographically.”

Infections have been rising in the younger cohort for a number of reasons, the board heard.

“We’ve had some students who’ve tested positive at university who’ve been reported in our figures,” she explained.

“We think on average that has accounted for around 15 per cent of our cases since students went back, but the number of cases in that age group has dropped.

“Worryingly, we’ve started to see slight rises in the proportion of older people who’ve tested positive.

“Clearly that’s the cohort which is at greater risk of admission to hospital and being affected more seriously by the infection, so we’re very concerned about that.”

CBC has been taking action to prevent and react to any infections in areas such as care homes, schools and work places.

“We’re putting a lot of focus on the availability and access to testing, which has remained relatively stable in the area,” she added.

“We know nationally the availability of testing is likely to increase quite significantly, so we should be able to do some rapid testing.

“We’re working hard to identify and finalise sites for extra testing which would be suitable for the winter period.”

CBC started to take on some local contact tracing at the end of August.

“That’s been very positive in many ways,” she said. “We’ve had conversations with residents and pointed them to sources of advice.

“We’re looking at whether it’s possible to expand that further in the future.”

Conservative Sandy councillor Tracey Stock, who chairs the board, said: “That contact tracing is really important to us.

“It helps us build a picture of what’s actually going on and provides that intel we can work with.”

Healthwatch Central Bedfordshire chief executive Diana Blackmun asked if one of the factors for the increase in cases is because more people are being tested than ever before.

The assistant director of public health replied: “I think if we were seeing now what we experienced in April and May I would say: ‘absolutely’.

“But accessibility and uptake of testing has been relatively constant and stable over the last few weeks.

“I’m very confident the increase we’re seeing is a real rise and not just because access to testing has changed.”