Covid case rate in Wales falls for fifth day in row

Aberavon seafront in the sunshine - Neath Port Talbot has had one of the UK's lowest Covid case rates in the last week

Wales' Covid-19 case rate has fallen for a fifth day in a row, with early signs the third wave may have passed its peak.

It is the first time we have seen five successive daily falls since early April and it follows a pattern also noticed in England.

Meanwhile, the number of people fully vaccinated has passed two million.

Although there has been another rise in Covid hospital numbers, they are below a similar point in the second wave.

Wales' case rate has dropped to 169.6 cases per 100,000, although it could still be a few more days before any impact from further measures being eased might be seen.

The latest figures from Public Health Wales show:

• The average number of cases per day is now 764, for the week ending 21 July. The week before it was 800 per day.

• The "doubling time" - the time it would roughly take for cases to double at the current rate - is now 23 days, showing the growth in positive tests has slowed.

• 54% of cases reported today involved positive tests among the under 30s. This reflects a pattern seen in recent weeks.

• Cases had been running higher per day than at the start of the second wave but are now dropping below that level.

In local communities, only 12 areas out of 410 have had fewer than two Covid cases in the past week.

The highest 10 hotspots are still dominated by Denbighshire - in towns like Rhyl, Prestatyn and Denbigh - although the county's case rate has fallen below 500 cases per 100,000 population.

Flintshire and Wrexham have also seen reductions, along with Bridgend and Torfaen in south Wales.

More figures from the rest of the UK will be published later on Monday, but more than half the 30 lowest case rates in local authority areas were in Wales on Sunday.

Vaccinations hit a milestone

The number of people fully vaccinated has passed the two million mark - with 2,002,162 people now having a second dose or 63.2% of the total population.

Wales hit the 1m mark for first doses at the beginning of March and for second doses on 23 May.

Second doses now make up 92% of all vaccinations given out in the past week.

The total receiving a first dose has risen to 2,289,142 or 71.2% of the population.

Widening gap on vaccine uptake with younger BAME people

The Covid vaccination programme is struggling to reach younger people from black and minority ethnic (BAME) communities, latest Public Health Wales figures show.

The biggest gap in uptake of first doses is for people in their 30s, with the gap widening in July to more than 17% between BAME people and their white counterparts.

There is also a widening gap for first doses for those aged 18 to 29, which has grown from just over 12% to nearly 16% in a month.

By 7 July, there were still more than 26,500 BAME people under 40 in Wales who had not had a first dose.

The latest monthly analysis shows 61% BAME people in their 30s had been given a first dose, compared to 78.1% of their white counterparts.

The take-up for BAME 18 to 29-year-olds was just over half, compared to two thirds of young, white people.

Gaps have also widened between those under 40 living in the most deprived compared to the least deprived in Wales.

Hospital numbers rise - but not as much as in second wave

Only Friday's figures for Covid hospital patients were published on Monday.

They show number of confirmed Covid cases in hospital beds rose to 130 on Friday, with an average of 107 patients testing positive over the week. It was 75 the week before, an increase of 43%.

But if we look at the same point in time - after about 50 days of the second wave and before the vaccination programme - the average number in hospital was 511 patients, nearly five times as many as now.

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There were 25 Covid patients in critical care on Friday - mostly between Betsi Cadwaladr, Hywel Dda and Aneurin Bevan health boards - one more than the previous day, according to Digital Health and Care Wales.

Covid hospital admissions are averaging 21 per day. This is the highest since late May but at this point in the second wave, there were more than 90 admissions of patients with confirmed and suspected Covid on average per day.

Two deaths reported

Two more deaths from people with confirmed Covid-19 were reported by Public Health Wales on Monday. These occurred on 21 and 23 July in the Cwm Taf Morgannwg and Hywel Dda health board areas. The daily average up to Sunday is 0.7 deaths a day.

As well as far fewer people with positive tests ending up in hospital or seriously ill so far than at the same point in the second wave, this has also resulted in fewer deaths.