Sheffield’s Covid-19 infection rate would ‘still be too high’ even without students returning

Greg Fell, director of Public Health at Sheffield City Council, attributed the spike in infections in recent weeks to the arrival of around 60,000 largely young people at Sheffield’s two universities but said there is evidence cases among students are levelling off. Infection rates across the city are currently “pretty even”.

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Sheffield’s infection rate is ‘between 150 and 160’ after accounting for ‘the student effect’ since the start of the new academic year, Mr Fell said.

Any area with an infection rate of more than 100 per 100,000 people would fall into Tier 2, where Sheffield currently finds itself.

Mr Fell said: “The message I hear from both universities is that students as a rule are acting pretty responsibly."

And while the Council has received “soft intelligence from a number of sources” that ‘Covid parties’ have taken place in Sheffield, there is no evidence students have held gatherings in a bid to develop herd immunity.

Mr Fell said: "I’m not convinced it’s a terribly clever idea for all sorts of reasons. There are consequences of infections, even in young adults. We don’t know how it’s going to play out.

"A general sense I got from both universities was that there were house parties but they have tailed off now.”

Herd immunity was dismissed as a “crazy idea" by Mr Fell.

“We are not going anywhere near that,” he added.