THE startling rise in the number of coronavirus cases in Caerphilly in the two weeks leading up to the imposition yesterday of a local lockdown, is a stark illustration of how quickly Covid-19 can tighten its grip even as people are relaxing theirs.

During the week ending Sunday August 23, there had been just eight cases confirmed in the Caerphilly county borough area, according to Public Health Wales.

But by the end of the following week - Sunday August 30 - there had been 46 new cases.

And by the end of the week ending last Sunday, September 6, there were 142 new cases.

The increases were such that the authorities felt they had no other option but to impose a local lockdown, and all the tighter restrictions on movements and gatherings that entails.

To put those 142 new cases across Caerphilly last week into chilling perspective - this was the highest number of weekly cases in the area since the week ending Sunday April 5.

That was the period during which coronavirus, which hit Gwent the earliest of all parts of Wales, was threatening to overwhelm the NHS.

The number of new cases confirmed in Caerphilly in week to Sunday April 5, was 142 - the same as last week - and this had been three times the amount confirmed for the week ending Sunday March 22, just two weeks earlier.

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Health minister Vaughan Gething used the testing positivity rate to emphasise how the increase in Caerphilly had prompted the decision to impose a local lockdown.

He said that across Wales, the positivity rate four weeks ago (from the end of Sunday September 6) had been 0.6 per cent. By the end of last week, it was 1.8 per cent.

"That may not sound like much, but there have been 406 new cases across Wales," he said.

The positive test rate in Caerphilly by the end of last week was 4.9 per cent, the highest in Wales, and the rate of cases there per 100,000 population was 78.4, among the highest in the UK.

Mr Gething also highlighted, that there had been eight new cases across Caerphilly in the week ending Sunday August 16, out of 132 across Wales, but just three weeks later, this Wales-wide figure from mid-August had been recorded in Caerphilly alone.

"This shows that coronavirus is on the rise, and if we do nothing now, we will see more people going into hospital," he said.

He added that Caerphilly has been "a good example of how quickly cases can rise", and the speed with which it had happened had meant early warning indicators had not been effective.

"(They) failed because the rise has happened so rapidly, so there was not much early warning at all," he said.