By Supermarkets thought to be Covid hotspots
Supermarkets are likely to be the most common place to catch Covid-19, official data has revealed.
Shops were the most common places that people had visited in the days leading up to a positive coronavirus test reported to the Test and Trace app in England.
Public Health England (PHE) analysed data from people who contracted the virus between November 9 and November 15.
They looked at the contacts of those who had caught the virus and retraced the steps of 128,808 people who tested positive.
Of those who tested positive, it was found that 18.3 per cent had visited a supermarket.
PHE said the data did not prove where people were contracting coronavirus.
Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium, said: “Supermarkets are one of the very few places that people can visit during lockdown so it is unsurprising that they feature strongly when people are asked where they have visited.
“Retailers continue to follow all safety guidance to make their premises Covid-secure.”
The second most common location reported by those who tested positive for Covid-19 were secondary schools, followed by primary schools, and then hospitals, and then care homes.
Both primary and secondary schools reopened in September after kids were kept off school during the first national lockdown.
It was revealed that 12.7 per cent of people who tested positive had attended secondary school and 10.1 per cent had attended a primary school.
This was based on pupils attending the schools.
PHE charts also suggest that infection rates appear to be levelling off or even declining in some parts of England, such as the North West and Yorkshire and the Humber.
Cases are lower but are still rising in places such as London, the South East and the West Midlands.
Proportion of all common locations reported in PHE data:
- Supermarket – 18.3%
- Secondary school – 12.7%
- Primary school – 10.1%
- Hospital – 3.6%
- Care home – 2.8%
- College – 2.4%
- Warehouse – 2.2%
- Nursery preschool – 1.8%
- Pub or bar – 1.6%
- Hospitality – 1.5%
- University – 1.4%
- Manufacture engineering – 1.4%
- Household fewer than five – 1.2%
- General practice – 1.1%
- Gym – 1.1%
- Restaurant or cafe – 1.0%
-
Photo: David Veksler
