Welshpool has lowest Covid levels in Powys

The Welshpool, Montgomery and Llanfyllin areas currently have the lowest levels of Covid-19 in Powys, but the county as a whole is inching towards the threshold for sparking a lockdown.

Powys County Council has released an info-graph this afternoon that shows the local situation for the county for a seven-day period from October 4-11. As a whole, it is showing 43 positive cases per 100,000 people and is moving perilously close to the 50-per-100,000 that can spark stricter restrictions.

The current Powys Red-alert hotspots are Ystradgynlais, Machynlleth and Hay and Talgarth which are registering the equivalent of more than 50 positive cases per 100,000 people, while Welshpool, Montgomery and Llanfyllin are currently showing less than 15-per-100,000, and are classed as Grey - the lowest alert level.

According to the graph, the picture is not so rosy in Newtown and Llanfair Caereinion who are in the second highest alert colour of Amber where the equivalent of 25-49 residents per 100,000 are positive.

Llanidloes is the only Powys region currently in the second tier of yellow (15-24 per 100,000).

The data does not include the tests taken on the last two days of the period (October 10-11) as those results would have taken time to process. 

Cases have continued to rise over the past week, with 11 positive results reported for the whole of Powys over the last 24 hours, taking the total to 586 since the first on March 11. According to the National Office for Statistics, there have been 95 deaths attributed to the virus.

In recent days, there have been calls for more localised figures with Powys covering such a broad area.

Cllr Amanda Jenner, who represents Trewern, said: “We need localised data for Powys, it would be ridiculous to put such a large county into lockdown if cases are predominantly concentrated in one area.”