The second peak of the third wave of infections in Shropshire looks to have stabilised and may even be falling. In the Shrewsbury area, the infection rates remain higher than those of the second wave – around 25% higher than they were during January.
In Ludlow, infection rates have grown to the level they reached during the second wave and the latest data for seven days ago suggests rates are still rising.
Research has shown that the now dominant Delta variant leads to higher hospital admission or emergency care attendance risk for patients compared with the alpha variant. The main spread of the virus is among young unvaccinated people and the older age group have a high degree of protection from vaccination. That means that deaths in which Covid-19 is a cause are much lower than they were in the first and second waves.
