Wealthy area of Merseyside has low case rates while town 35 miles away has UK’s highest case numbers
At a government press conference last Wednesday, England’s deputy chief medical officer singled out one part of the north-west for praise. Sefton, said Dr Jenny Harries, had “done a brilliant job” dealing with rising cases of the variant first identified in India.
That day, eight people in the Merseyside local authority tested positive for Covid. Two weeks earlier, on 5 May, there had been 36 reported cases. The data was going in the right direction, said Harries.
