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Title: Coronavirus watchlist looming over Slough again as infection rate triples Post by: Cookham v Coronavirus on September 29, 2020, 11:40:54 AM The infection rate in Slough has tripled in the space of a week, according to the latest figures, suggesting the town could be thrust back onto the Government's coronavirus watchlist.
Positive cases of coronavirus jumped from 22 to 87 in the seven days to Thursday, September 24, and more worryingly the infection rate (the number of new cases per 100,000 people) has rocketed to 58.2 from 14.7. It means the town has a higher rate than Lancaster (45.9) where tighter restrictions are in place, as well as some areas in London that were recently added to the "areas of concern" list. Slough was the first, and so far only, Berkshire town to be added to the Government's watchlist on August 22, but was removed two weeks later on September 4 as the infection rate dropped to 12.0. The town's Labour-run borough council said its figures had "gone up dramatically", but that it is a "representative of what is going on across the country". This is not a Slough specific thing," a council spokesperson said. "We had a spike that was Slough specific, but this is not Slough specific, it is across the board. "[In Slough] there is a lot of community transmission. We have had a lot of household cases, we have large multi-generational households. A household cluster can be seven or eight people or more. "We are seeing household clusters, community spread and a lot of odd individual cases. "It's not like in Bracknell, where they had an outbreak in a dessert parlour. We haven't had any outbreaks in any particular place." |