COVID-19 case numbers in Helensburgh – and across Argyll and Bute – have fallen to their lowest level in more than five months, according to official government data.
Statistics issued this week by Public Health Scotland (PHS) show that there were 17 confirmed positive tests for the disease in Argyll and Bute in the seven days to Tuesday, February 23.
That’s a rate of 19.8 cases per 100,000 of population – the lowest since last September.
Just two weeks earlier, for the seven days to February 8, there were 105 confirmed cases across Argyll and Bute as a whole – a rate of 122.3 per 100,000 people.
And in Helensburgh and Lomond – where most of Argyll and Bute’s confirmed cases have been recorded throughout the course of the pandemic – there’s been a dramatic drop in incidences of the disease.
The latest data on case numbers comes after the National Registers of Scotland published figures showing an alarming spike in Covid deaths in Argyll and Bute.
Seven deaths involving Covid-19 were recorded in the area in the seven days from February 15-21.
That’s the highest total for a single week in Argyll and Bute since the week of April 27 to May 3 last year.
Those seven deaths took the total number of Covid-19 deaths in the area to 103.
But the statistics in terms of positive Covid test numbers and infection rates is significantly more encouraging.
For the week to February 22, there were six cases in the ‘Lomond Shore’ neighbourhood – covering Cardross, Luss and the west shore of Loch Lomond from Duck Bay to Firkin Point – and three in ‘Garelochhead’, which includes HM Naval Base Clyde and the whole of the Rosneath peninsula as well as the village of Garelochhead itself.
In each of the five other neighbourhood areas measured by PHS, there were fewer than three confirmed cases.
PHS does not disclose exact numbers where there are fewer than three cases in a neighbourhood, to protect patient confidentiality.
In Lomond Shore there were 10 cases in the week to February 19 – meaning there’s been a 40 per cent decrease in the rolling total in the space of just three days.
And in Garelochhead, cases have fallen from a monthly high of 32 cases for the seven days to February 7 - the first week when 'lateral flow testing' among military and civilian personnel was carried out at the naval base.
The most dramatic shift in the ‘rate per 100,000 people’, however, is in the Helensburgh East area – where the infection rate was as high as 514.4 for the seven days to February 13, when 20 cases were recorded.
Nine days later Helensburgh East, like the rest of the town, has case numbers and infection rates which are so low that specific numbers are not recorded.
Meanwhile, PHS vaccination data by council and health board area, released for the first time on Friday, showed that as of February 25, 29,313 people in Argyll and Bute – 40.2 per cent of the area's total population – had received their first dose of one of the UK's Covid vaccines.
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