Official coronavirus cases rise in Sheffield as city continues to test "lots and lots of people"

Public Health England figures show that 1,365 people had been confirmed as testing positive for Covid-19 by 9am Wednesday morning (April 15) in Sheffield, up from 1,316 the same time on Tuesday.

It means cases have increased by 4% over the last 24 hours, lower than the rate of increase across the UK of 5%.

They were among the 10,210 cases recorded across the North East and Yorkshire, a figure which rose by 524 over the period.

Cumulative case counts include patients who are currently unwell, have recovered and those that have died.

Across the UK, 98,476 people had tested positive for coronavirus as of 9am on Wednesday, up from 93,873 at the same point on Tuesday, Department of Health and Social Care figures show. In total, 398,916 people had been tested, and, as of 5pm on Tuesday, 12,868 had died.

Dr Andrew Lee, a reader of public health at Sheffield University, said people should take official coronavirus figures “with a pinch of salt” in a bid to calm fears over the numbers.

On the high number of confirmed cases in the city, he said: “It's because Sheffield Teaching Hospitals have done lots and lots and lots of testing. A good couple of weeks ago they were doing over 1,000 tests a day and this was almost 10 per cent of the total number in the country.

“So, Sheffield has one per cent of England's population but because it's doing 10 per cent of the tests there's a huge discrepancy there.”

He said: “The number of cases we can see is like the tip of an iceberg. The iceberg is the same size, but if you test more you see more of the iceberg.”

Dr Lee said: “The number of tests they are doing in Sheffield is phenomenal. We are really lucky.

“A lot of the testing we have done in Sheffield was in its health workers. Being able to test all the staff who might have symptoms allows the hospital to see who can return to work.