More coronavirus testing to take place in Walsall as infection rate rises

Members of Walsall Council’s scrutiny committee heard how new mobile testing centres are being set up at the town hall and the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Caldmore in the next few weeks.

This will be in addition to the Pillar 1 testing at Walsall Manor Hospital and Pillar 2 at all other sites doing mobile testing.

The committee meeting on Tuesday heard how the number of people testing positive for coronavirus was rising.

But, in better news for the town, there had been no confirmed cases in the Manor Hospital or among patients in care homes during the last week.

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Councillor Stephen Craddock, portfolio holder for health and wellbeing, said Walsall’s Covid rate per 100,000 population had risen from 7.4 in the week ending August 2 to 13.1.

This compared with Birmingham which had risen from 11.7 to 25.9 per 100,000 in the same period, Sandwell rising from 15.9 to 20.8, Wolverhampton rising from 14.5 to 17.9 and Dudley going from 2.8 to 6.5.

Younger

Councillor Craddock added there had been 23 positive cases confirmed in Walsall during the past week. He said: “There have been no hospital or care home cases in the last seven days.

“Whilst the level of cases has been going up, it hasn’t seen a significant rise in admissions to the hospital.

“That’s because a lot of the current tests are coming out on younger people and this is being discovered through the increase in testing we’ve been doing.

“We have seen a few positive tests in care homes but they have been the staff and not the residents and this has been picked up through our weekly testing on all staff.

“There hasn’t been an onward transmission to the residents because they are taking the appropriate infection control measures within the home.

“At the moment we are testing around 650 people per 100,000 of the population. The average is 750 so we are slightly below that.

“But we have a plan to get that to around 1,000 tests per 100,000 in the area for Pillar 1 and Pillar 2 Testing.

“We are opening the town hall, hopefully on September 2 and they are just working out logistical problems.

“We’ve also got a new site at the Gurdwara temple in Caldmore which we are hoping to open in the next few weeks and we are actively looking for other sites.”