Proportion of Sheffield Covid tests to come back positive reaches all time high

Almost one in four people in Sheffield who took a PCR test in the week up to Christmas eve received a positive result.

In the seven days to December 24, the positivity rate was 24.3 per cent. This has risen steadily in recent weeks.

For context, the rate at the peak of 2020’s pandemic was 17.2 per cent, for the seven days to October 7 that year.

The positivity rate for PCR tests in Sheffield surpassed the 2020 peak on December 19 this year – where it hit 17.3 per cent – and it has increased as each day has passed since then.

A week ago the positivity rate in Sheffield was 15.4 per cent. And this time in 2020, the positivity rate was only 7.4 per cent.

Duplicate results for people who took more than one test are not counted.

This comes as Sheffield’s infection rate reached its highest point in 2021 – there were 1,065.7 new positive test results per 100,000 of the population in the week to December 24.

This means that more than one per cent of the city’s population has tested positive with Covid in that week.

This is not as high as the peaks in 2020 – in November last year the infection rate in Sheffield rose to more than 1,700 per 100,000 of the population.

However, the potential for the highly transmissable Omicron variant to spread rapidly means the infection rate in Sheffield could continue to rise.