October 6, 2020 10.30 am This story is over 41 months old

Lincolnshire health bosses relaxed about spike in COVID-19 cases

We’re below the national average still
| Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite

Coronavirus figures in Lincolnshire paint a bleak picture after a national data issue saw a steep rise over the past week, but local health bosses remain “unconcerned”.

The number of cases doubled across the county overall after the problem which saw the government’s Microsoft Excel spreadsheet unable to handle the surge in case numbers.

There were 317 cases confirmed across Greater Lincolnshire over the weekend, compared to 184 on the Friday prior.

Meanwhile, Monday’s figures increased by another 117, passing the 5,000 cumulative total.

In some areas such as West Lindsey case numbers have even tripled.

However, Lincolnshire County Council’s Assistant Director of Public Health Tony McGinty said: “We are still relatively low risk compared to most other areas and a lot of the jump in infection rates and numbers of cases has been explained by the general national increases.

“So I’m not concerned there’s something in particular going on in Lincolnshire; we’re not catching up with or overtaking areas that have got higher infection rates, but clearly our numbers are going up.”

Here’s how each district’s case numbers have increased in the past seven days:

  • Boston: 12 to 17 cases
  • East Lindsey: 16 to 28
  • Lincoln: 25 to 75
  • North Kesteven: 13 to 38
  • South Holland: 10 to 19
  • South Kesteven: 22 to 60
  • West Lindsey: 22 to 60

Mr McGinty said he understood people’s frustrations at the various changes in data collection since the pandemic began — including the sudden inclusion of Pillar Two (community testing) data, which saw a massive jump in figures, and changes to the way deaths were recorded, which saw a chunk cut out of the data.

“I completely understand that people’s confidence in what they’re hearing is going to be undermined if we keep having problems, but what I would say to people, is in many ways the trends are more important than the absolute numbers on any given day.

“The glitch like the one we saw on Friday, whilst it was serious, didn’t fundamentally change the picture of the trend that we were seeing, and it was corrected quite quickly.”