Update from Tony Hill,
Interim Director of Public Health
24 February 2021
Dear headteachers,
Welcome back and we hope you managed to get some well-earned down time over half term.
Here is this week’s COVID-19 data update for children and young people. The graph below is also attached here for ease and shows the rate of cases for age groups from 0-19, up to February 17, 2021.
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 The figure shows that during the past couple of weeks:
- Rates of COVID-19 have been continuing to fall steadily in all age groups under 20 from the peak seen in early January.
- This illustrates the continued impact of the current lockdown on our rates and is mirrored in older ages groups.
- Rates among children and young people over four years of age are now slightly below those seen at the end of lockdown 2 (2 December 2020)
- Public health will continue to monitor rates as schools now move to opening on 8 March, as confirmed by the Prime Minister this week.
Notes on the figure: the figure shows the rolling 7-day rate (per 100,000) of cases of COVID-19 among children and young people aged under 20, by 5-year age bands in West Sussex. We have chosen to cover the period from the 1 September 2020 when many settings reopened, until the most recent 7-day period we have data for.
This week, the table shows that:
- The rates among 0 to 19 age groups are lower in West Sussex than England
- Rates among children and young people in the different age bands under 20 are now quite similar to each other, ranging from 42 to 58 per 100,000
Notes on the table: data in the table show numbers and rates of cases of COVID-19 among children and young people under 20 and across all ages in the most recent 7-day period (taking account of a built in time lag). Using rates as well as absolute numbers enables comparison across areas with different population sizes.
For example: the table shows that there were 762 new cases of COVID-19 in West Sussex in the most recent week, a rate of 88 per 100,000. Rates do vary within the county, with the highest rate currently in Crawley (136 per 100,000) and the lowest in Horsham (49 per 100,000). Rates allow more accurate comparison between areas as they take into account that population sizes vary.
However, it is also important to bear in mind that the further populations are broken down into small sub groups (such as five year age bands and/or district and boroughs), the smaller the numbers involved. Sometimes very small differences in numbers can create large differences in rates. This is particularly true now that the number of cases of COVID-19 has fallen.
Best regards
Tony Hill
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