Your questions answered
How many cases of Covid-19 have occurred in families where only one person has been infected?
As a local authority we would not receive this level of information, but equally we do not believe that this information is collected. When a positive case is identified there isn’t currently a process whereby other members of a household would be tested for current infection.
There are some nationally led pilots into testing of asymptomatic staff and patients/residents in hospitals and care home settings currently happening. This is to better understand the prevalence of asymptomatic carrying of Covid-19, but we are not aware of anything on-going in domestic/private households.
In these families where there has been on person infected, is antibody testing taking place to assess how many other family members have been infected but not affected by the virus?
There isn’t currently a reliable antibody test and various national studies, such as this one by the ONS are happening to explore this important area. There is also uncertainty as to how long antibody protection lasts which these studies hope to measure.
If only one family member is infected and not others, it would suggest that the virus is less infectious that was once thought. Is this correct?
Transmission within a household would be affected by many factors. The amount of contact, the type of contact, the dose of the virus that someone is exposed too, hand hygiene and an individuals susceptibility e.g. if they are immunocompromised.
As there isn’t currently a process for contact tracing each case of Covid-19 we do not have any information on proportions of those in a household affected. Some members of a household may be infected, and infectious, but not show significant or typical symptoms.
There are rumours that the area around the Cheltenham Racecourse has a higher incidence of Covid-19 than the rest of Gloucestershire. Is there any evidence of this?
Its important to remember that there are many factors that could influence the number of cases in an area, including population density, age and health profile, also the position of an area on the pandemic curve.
Currently, the data we receive around cases is limited and due to there not being community testing it does not give us a very accurate picture of prevalence by area.
As you would expect the urban centres of Gloucester and Cheltenham have seen the highest total numbers of cases in the county, and there are currently no statistically significant differences in the rate of confirmed cases between the two districts.
Information on confirmed cases is available from PHE and updated daily providing information on cases in Gloucestershire.
*The above data reflects nationally published data available here.
**This section contains information on deaths of patients who have died in hospitals in Gloucestershire and had tested positive for Covid-19 at time of death or where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate. All deaths are recorded against the date of death rather than the date the deaths were announced. It is based on national NHS data published here.
The data in this briefing is updated at 9am each day based on the figures released at 2pm the previous day.
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