Stockport is the 2nd lowest in the whole of Greater Manchester as published in the MEN a day or 2 ago. I know for a fact there have been 20 cases at a care home in Offerton, which are probably in this 26.
That makes sense and I agree that it likely is a specific outbreak driving the big jump.
But that MEN data was from a few days ago when Stockport had started to drop. With 9 cases in two days. But here are the numbers for Stockport over the past 8 days
15, 19, 3, 6, 10, 13, 7, 26. Total 99
The only GM towns over 100 in those 8 days are (Oldham (245) Manchester (210) Rochdale (101)
Every other GM town had less cases than Stockport in the past 8 days. So on that basis it is not second best.
The 'second lowest in GM' WAS true, as I have said on here a lot. Its why I flagged the town up as it went from star performer to not very quickly.
In fact up until a week or two ago Stockport was top of the tree with the fewest cases in GM if you read back through my daily reports - beating even Wigan and Bury that are also low (and still are with Wigan especially out on its own).
However, it is complicated because raw case numbers per day are NOT the only defining category. Not even necessarily the key one. Depends what you are looking for.
That is why we have a pop score - which evens out the population of the health area v other areas that are larger or smaller as - of course - an area with 500,000 people would get more cases than one with 250,000 so just saying Manchester is worse than many places may be literally true on raw numbers but it is bound to be on pure case numbers given its size. So in of itself it tells only part of the story.
On the pop score Stockport IS still low as it is a relatively large area and is indeed second on the pop score to only Salford who are better. But if you chart how fast that pop score has grown in the past 2/3 weeks its a different story. It is climbing relatively fast because its numbers have escalated in a relative sense worse than many other places.
The pop score best looks at the epidemic across 6 months and is less illustrative of the immediate now unless you watch how fast it changes day to day. Yes long term success matters. So on that measure you could say that Wigan is actually almost identical in success rate to Manchester - as their pop scores are evenly matched so ought not to be praised for its duccess right now. Yet Wigan had 3 cases yesterday and Manchester 33.
So clearly these tell things tell different stories. Especially as 3 cases are not at risk of becoming an epidemic in hours. 33 is if you do not trace it and isolate it can be.
Charting what is happening is not just looking at one raw number and saying who is high and low. Though it is tempting to take the pop score as that basic guide because it does best judge relative success over time.
But right now short term outbreaks and stopping them becoming a hard to repress wave is what is far more important. Not how well somepne has done over the time since March.
You have to follow the data across all the different things I post - the pop score (long term relative success), changing numbers month to month (cases rising or stable), weekly (they all go up and down based on the vagaries of testing so you need to see if it is a blip or a pattern) and the three day total which suggests a possible local outbreak is maybe occurring and in need of tracing.
They can all be illuminating or misleading and you need to balance one against the other. This is why I give a range of them here daily. I know it feels overwhelming - to me as much as anyone.I hated maths at school.
But the more you know the more you are empowered to act to try to stop it becoming a second wave.
