Why the confirmed number of coronavirus cases in Sheffield has fallen to just one

Every day Public Health England publishes the confirmed number of cases in each local authority area.
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On Tuesday, the number of confirmed cases in Sheffield stood at 15. But, by Wednesday morning it had fallen to just one. Why?

A spokesperson for Public Health England told The Star: “The figures should be treated as a guide. Since they are published on a daily basis, they are subject to data cleansing and as such they can fluctuate between Local Authority areas.

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“What’s more, the figures do not give a true indication of how many cases there are in localities now that testing has changed - now we have moved to the delay phase we are mainly testing in hospitals rather than testing all suspected cases in communities.

They added: “If it says it’s five cases, for example, it’s got a degree of meaningless to it because now people are self-isolating we won’t know what the exact figures are.”