This week saw a further plateauing in Covid-19 case numbers across all age groups in the island, according to the government’s weekly surveillance report.

The current seven-day average for reported positive results is 21.

Last week this figure sat at 18.

The effective reproduction number (Rt) was 1.00 this week, up slightly from 0.77 last week.

The Effective Reproduction Number (Rt) represents the number of secondary infections generated by each case over time ‘t’ (over a week as presented here) and can be dramatically modified by applying effective interventions.

Case ascertainment and calculation of the reproduction number is, of course, dependent on patterns of testing and reporting so it is likely that there are more cases than are currently notified.

This caveat has applied throughout the pandemic when Covid has been transmitting on island, although the change to LFD self testing and self reporting may have impacted on that to an unknown extent.

In the absence of new variants of concern, public health would expect the fall in cases to continue as the current BA.2 omicron wave passes through the susceptible population and we move through Spring into Summer.

Our current continuing trend in case numbers supports this.

Due to small numbers, and ‘the associated caveats and identifiability’, the hospital snapshot is not available in this week’s report.

Thankfully, there are no new Covid-19 related deaths to report this week.

The total over the course of the pandemic still sits at 107.

Of these 107; 52 people died in hospital, 41 in a nursing or residential home, four in a hospice and one at home.

In terms of age range,0.9% were aged 40-49, 7.5% were aged 50-59, 4.7% were aged 60-69, 17.8% were aged 70-19, 39.3% were aged 80-89 and 29.9% were over 90 years old.

And in terms of sex, 60% were men and 40% were women.