IF you follow our publication of local authority Covid-19 tables,, you will have noticed that Harlow has maintained a steady position around 250th out of the 315 local authorities in England.

However, in the past two-three weeks, Harlow has started going up the table.

Cases per 100,00

30.9: 29.9

4/10: 35.6

8/10: 56.3

16/10: 68.9

23/10: 79.2

1/11: 97.6

8/11: 118.3

15/11: 150.5

22/11: 206.7

.

The table released on Friday (November 27th) now puts Harlow at 111/315.

It also has the second biggest increase in the country. Only Ipswich is bigger.

The figures are based on tests carried out in laboratories (pillar one of the government’s testing programme) and in the wider community (pillar two).

Many explanations are purely anecdotal but many look at traffic levels, busy retail area car parks and say “lockdown, what lockdown?”

There are many schools that have at least one year group off. One senior school had just one year group left.

One school had stretched teaching staff close to exhaustion.

Many might opine that this may well be the case in every town across the country. It may be very difficult to compare one town with another. That is why analysis of such matters is extremely complicated or jus hard to get right.

But this may well be worth keeping an eye on.