Recent changes in testing mean the declining coronavirus infection rate in Wirral does not give an accurate picture of the pandemic, according to the borough's public health director.

Speaking at tonight's meeting of Wirral Council's adult social care and public health committee, Julie Webster said the falling case rate was good news, but the data is difficult to interpret at the moment.

Ms Webster said testing changes since the start of the year, which include people being told they do not need a PCR test to confirm a positive lateral flow result, mean current figures for cases do not give an accurate picture of the pandemic.

The public health director said that what we do know is that we still have very high rates of the virus in the borough.

The current figures show Wirral had an average of 437 cases per day on the latest figures up to January 19, a number which was down from a high of 889 cases on January 6, but far higher than the levels we saw shortly before Omicron was detected, when fewer than 200 cases were recorded in a typical day.

On the pressure this is putting on hospitals, Ms Webster said that as of yesterday, 92 people were being treated for the virus in Wirral's hospitals.

While that figure is down from 94 on January 18 and 98 on January 11, it is up from 73 on January 4 and just 28 on December 28 last year.

Pensby and Thingwall Conservative councillor Ivan Camphor asked Ms Webster what is being done to ensure good access to lateral flow tests, adding there seems to be a lack of packs available in the community.

The public health director said we did have problems, but people can now easily access lateral flow tests once again and can find out more information about this on the Keep Wirral Well website.