Coronavirus cases in the Anglia region leap up by 10,000 as 'hidden' test data revealed

Health worker in face mask conducts a coronavirus test
The number of coronavirus cases in the Anglia region is now 10,000 higher than published on Wednesday. Credit: PA

A more accurate picture of the number of people being tested positive for coronavirus in the Anglia region has been revealed for the first time with the release of new test results.

It means the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the Anglia reported by the official government data website on Thursday has suddenly leapt up by nearly 10,000 since Wednesday.

After days of criticism over the way the positive test data was being presented at a local level, Public Health England (PHE) has now combined two strands of coronavirus testing to give a clearer picture of which areas have a higher infection rate.

It follows the local lockdown in Leicester where local officials reported they were not being given all the testing data.

Up until Thursday only positive tests in the so-called Pillar 1 were being published at a local authority level. That was only government tests conducted in NHS and PHE laboratories and it excluded tests in Pillar 2, which was tests being carried out in the community in mobile centres by commercial companies on behalf of the government.

In recent weeks, there were a much higher number of tests being carried out in Pillar 2 rather than Pillar 1 so the official government figures published every day for each local authority area were severely under-reporting the true scale of confirmed coronavirus cases.

Bedford has the highest coronavirus infection rate in the Anglia region and one of the highest in the country. Credit: Roger Willoughby

With new data, it means that in Bedford, the area of the Anglia region with the highest infection rate, the number of positive tests has shot up by more than 400 compared with the numbers being reported on Wednesday. That is a 50% increase.

Across every local authority district in the region, the new figures being a larger number of positive tests have been revealed for the first time - the numbers going up between 26% in Norfolk to 155% in Peterborough.

The map shows the revised figures of confirmed coronavirus cases in each county in the Anglia region including the pillar 2 data. Credit: Data from Public Health England

These are confirmed coronavirus cases in each county in the Anglia region reported on the government's official website on Thursday. The figures in brackets are the positive cases reported on Wednesday before the Pillar 2 test results were included

  • Bedfordshire - 3,788 (up from 2,444)

  • Cambridgeshire - 3,421 (up from 1,763)

  • Essex - 6,496 (up from 4,278)

  • Hertfordshire - 4,064 (up from 3,007)

  • Milton Keynes - 848 (up from 518)

  • Norfolk - 2,842 (up from 2,249)

  • Northamptonshire - 3,105 (up from 1,695)

  • Suffolk - 2,599 (up from 1,565)

Despite the addition of the new data which reveals nearly 10,000 more people have tested positive for Covid-19 in the Anglia region, the overall trend of confirmed cases in the region is still falling.

Last week there were can average of 42 new cases every day in the Anglia region compared to 77 a day the previous week.

Bedfordshire is the unitary areas of Bedford, Central Bedfordshire and Luton combined. The county of Essex includes the unitary areas of Southend and Thurrock and the county of Cambridgeshire figures include Peterborough.

Despite the addition of the new Pillar 2 data, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the Anglia region is still steadily declining. Credit: Data from Public Health England

While the new data has seen the published test results in the Anglia region increased considerably, nationally in England the number of positive tests has been revised downwards.

In a statement of the data dashboard, the government admitted some of the confirmed Covid-19 cases has been counted twice:

"Pillar 2 data for England has had duplicate tests for the same person removed by PHE from 2 July 2020. This means that the cumulative total number of UK lab-confirmed cases is now around 30,000 lower than reported on 1 July 2020."