There has been one Covid-19 related death in the last week.

According to the government’s weekly surveillance report, the total number of deaths since the start of the pandemic has mounted to 115.

However, last week saw a decrease in Covid case numbers across all age groups.

Though the effective reproduction number increased from 0.5 to 0.9 last week, the Rt values are sensitive to large fluctuations when daily case numbers are small.

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

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

Last week also saw a slight increase in seven-day average daily reporting from 14 to 15.