‘Vital that Public Health advice is ‘up to date’ - Durkan raises concerns following reporting issue for Western Trust coronavirus cases

Mr Durkan was speaking after a reporting issue regarding the number of COVID19 cases for the Western Trust was confirmed on Thursday.

The number of lab confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Derry and Strabane remains at 52 because data from the Western Trust has not been included in recent days, the Public Health Agency said.

The PHA said tests were initially conducted by the Regional Virology Laboratory in Belfast for all of the north. However, lab testing data from the Western Trust, which started on April 3, is not currently included due to ‘reporting issues’.

Thus there had been no reported rise in cases in Derry and Strabane since Tuesday when the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases rose from 51 to 52.

Foyle MLA Mr Durkan commented: “As elected representatives, we are constantly asking people to follow the Public Health advice and rightly so. However, it is absolutely crucial that this information is accurate and fully up to date. It is concerning to read that the Western Trust reporting information on the Public Health Agency daily report, relating to COVID-19 testing and cases, has been not updated in a few days.

“We need to ensure the information we put in the public domain is completely accurate. The omission of data from a large Trust could also skew the figures across the North.”

Mr Durkan said the outdated number of cases of COVID-19 in the Western Trust area could cause people to relax their approach to this virus “and that can prove fatal”.

“People must continue to treat the Coronavirus with the severity it requires,” he said, adding:

“I will be raising these issues with the Western Trust senior leadership tomorrow morning in a meeting, to press for this to be rectified without delay. We must ensure the figures published for the Trust area are completely accurate. People deserve the correct information at this critical time.”

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