The trend of Covid-19 case numbers reported from testing continues to fall this week.

According to the government’s weekly surveillance report, this week saw a decrease in case numbers across all age groups.

The effective reproduction number (Rt) was 0.4 this week, a further decrease from last week’s value of 0.7. This is down considerably from the week before, when it stood at 5.15.

It is worth noting that Rt values are sensitive to large fluctuations when daily case numbers are small.

Therefore, consideration should be taken of other epidemiological data to gain a true understanding of patterns of spread.

Case ascertainment and calculation of the reproduction number is 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-19 has been transmitting on island, although the change to LFD self testing and self reporting may have impacted on that to an unknown extent.

Further changes to testing guidance published on April 1 are likely having an additional impact.

This week we have seen a decrease in seven-day average daily reporting from 144 to 73.

To calculate a seven-day average, the cases from each of the seven days are added up and then divided by seven.

So there may be fluctuations on a day to day basis over a week, but the average number of reported cases per day this week was 73.

If you take this case number, and compare it with the government’s census data from 2021, which states there are 84,069 residents of the Isle of Man, this means that only 0.08% of the island’s resident population were testing positive this week (on average).

The report has also confirmed there were no more Covid-19 related deaths this week.

The island’s overall total since the start of the pandemic therefore remains at 110.

There was also a drop in hospitalised patients this week.

At the time the information for the report was compiled, at 10am on Tuesday, July 5 – there were 12 patients in hospital. Two of these patients were admitted for treatment of their Covid-19 infection and 10 were admitted for other reasons and tested positive while in Noble’s.

vaccinated

Of these patients, 83% were double vaccinated and boosted, 8% had just had their primary course and 8% were unvaccinated.

This week’s report also again provides statistics for the countries that constitute the United Kingdom.

It states that in the most recent week (week ending June 24):

l The percentage of people testing positive for coronavirus continued to increase across the UK, likely caused by increases in infections compatible with Omicron variants BA.4 and BA.5.

l In England, the estimated number of people testing positive for Covid-19 was 1,829,100 (95% credible interval: 1,745,900 to 1,914,300), equating to 3.35% of the population or around one in 30 people.

l In Wales, the estimated number of people testing positive for Covid-19 was 106,000 (95% credible interval: 86,400 to 127,100), equating to 3.49% of the population or around one in 30 people.

l In Northern Ireland, the estimated number of people testing positive for Covid-19 was 71,000 (95% credible interval: 58,000 to 85,700), equating to 3.87% of the population or around one in 25 people.

l In Scotland, the estimated number of people testing positive for Covid-19 was 288,200 (95% credible interval: 250,100 to 327,200), equating to 5.47% of the population or around one in 18 people.