CHSS Senior Clinical Research Fellow (Public Health) Specialist Dr Lindsay Forbes offers expert comment on why there is a concentration of COVID-19 cases around Ashford, named as one of the country’s virus ‘hotspots’.
in a recent feature in Kent Online, Lindsay offers insight on underlying factors behind the data which may help to explain differences in rates across particular areas of Kent. As of 12 June, there were 858 recorded cases of COVID-19 in the area, with an infection rate of 663.7 per 100,000 people.
Lindsay is researching this very relevant and interesting picture. She said: ‘we’re working with Kent County Council to try to understand this better. The key thing is I don’t think there’s any evidence to support the idea that it’s about hospitals having different testing behaviours. What is more likely to explain it, we think, is something different about the populations of these places, the work they do, how they travel, where they live.
‘Ashford, for example, has more people in key worker occupations, who have had to carry on going out to work, than Tunbridge Wells. It is much easier to keep your distance from others if you are working at home or are furloughed. Or it may be that a higher proportion of the population commutes to London. The good news for Ashford is that it does not have strikingly high death rates. In Kent, Dartford has been hit worst in terms of deaths, which may be to do with population density. Also more people in Dartford belong to Black and Asian ethnic groups, who are at higher risk of dying of COVID-19 than White people.’
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