Kent Update: Coronavirus (COVID-19) cases confirmed in Kent

Public Health England has confirmed further coronavirus (COVID-19) cases in Kent, bringing the total to 8302 in Kent and 1106 in Medway (12 Aug 2020). This equates to a rate per 100,000 of population – 524.9 for Kent and 397 for Medway.

The Public Health England figures are issued on a daily basis and are based on a national, regional and upper tier authority level. From 2 July, they include pillar one (tests carried out by NHS and PHE labs) and pillar two testing (tests in the wider community).*

Local Authorities have been receiving the testing numbers and overall results for pillar 2 testing  for a number of weeks and use it alongside pillar 1 results  to monitor activity, identify trends and coordinate testing capacity across Kent and Medway to ensure that anyone who needs a test, can access one.

Kent County Council’s Director of Public Health, Andrew Scott-Clark said: “The public should be reassured that the levels of testing across Kent have also been ramped up and we would expect to see a rise in the number of cumulative confirmed cases. We have increased our testing capacity so that we are able to identify and confirm cases in our community and support the NHS Test and Trace programme. We appeal to residents to follow the guidance should they be contacted by NHS trace. This will hall help us control the spread of the virus.”

At Kent County Council, we are engaging with residents, our own staff and provider services to ensure they are aware of the latest national guidelines at www.phe.gov.uk/coronavirus The government and NHS guidance can also be found at www.nhs.uk/coronavirus

We appreciate many residents will have questions regarding how this is affecting Kent County Council services and we will try and answer as many of those as possible, please read our your questions answered page. For the very latest information on our services, be sure to check our service updates page.

*The PHE dashboard, which can be found here on gov.uk, has changed so that daily reporting includes deaths that have occurred in all settings where there has been a positive COVID-19 test, including hospitals, care homes and the wider community. A technical summary is available here. This also includes case rates per 100,000 resident population and data at lower tier local authority level.

For more information of the addition of pillar two testing to daily figures at a local authority level, go to https://kccmediahub.net/covid-19-pillar-two-testing-explanation745

Tests for COVID-19 are performed by laboratories around the UK. The processes for reporting are carried out separately for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The overall UK daily and cumulative counts are aggregated by the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) from the counts for the four countries, and submitted to PHE to display on the dashboard.

The Government’s mass testing programme consists of five “pillars”. The overall UK case counts include test results from pillars 1 and 2. All other counts on the dashboard include only results from pillar 1. Pillar 1 includes tests carried out by NHS and PHE labs (and equivalent in the devolved administrations). Pillar 2 is testing by commercial partners. Information about the different pillars is available here.

PHE data may be subject to delays in case confirmation and reporting, as well as ongoing data cleaning. Location is based on case residential postcode. When this is not available, NHS trust or reporting laboratory postcode is used. The data is therefore subject to change.

It does not reveal any more than the minimum information that is necessary for public health protection purposes because individuals have a right to have their identity and personal information protected and kept confidential.

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