When we will know if Sheffield needs enhanced support due to rising Covid-19 cases

Sheffield is already on the Government’s watchlist as an ‘area of concern’, due to the growing number of coronavirus cases.

The city will learn today, Friday, September 18, when Public Health England publishes its weekly surveillance report, whether new measures are being brought in to curb the spread of the virus.

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Sheffield could remain an ‘area of concern’, the least serious of three levels on the watchlist, meaning Sheffield Council is expected to work with partners to take additional steps to manage any outbreaks and reduce community spread of the virus.

Those measures could include extra testing targeted at high-risk areas or groups, such as care homes; stronger communication about the need for social distancing and hand-washing; or more detailed work to identify any clusters so action can be taken.

What would enhanced support mean?

It could be elevated to an ‘area of enhanced support’, meaning it would get additional resources to enable measures like more widespread testing and better engagement with high-risk groups to improve testing and tracing.

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Or it could become an ‘area of intervention’, with a local lockdown like those imposed elsewhere potentially including tougher restrictions on households meeting or reduced pub opening hours, though this seems unlikely given the Covid-19 infection rate in Sheffield remains below that in other areas with such measures in place.

There are encouraging signs the infection rate in Sheffield is slowly starting to fall after a big rise.

What is the latest Covid-19 infection rate in Sheffield?

The daily number of confirmed cases peaked last Monday at 65, which was the highest recorded since April, but has gradually reduced in the days since.

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There were 301 confirmed cases during the week ending on Sunday, September 13, the latest period for which reliable figures are available – a weekly infection rate of 51.5 new cases per 100,000 people.

To put that in perspective, it is around a quarter of the rate recorded in Bolton, where a local lockdown has been imposed.

But it is still nearly double the rate of 28.5 when Sheffield was made an ‘area of concern’ last Friday, and is above the rate in some places where intervention was introduced back then.