Confirmation that the UK’s second wave of the coronavirus pandemic was Swanage’s first wave, has been backed up by February’s official figures of deaths due to Covid-19 published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Sadly, the number of deaths due to Covid-19 registered in Swanage for February 2021 was 15, bringing the total for the whole pandemic to 30. The number is believed to be partly due to the Covid outbreak in January 2021 at the Wordsworth Care Home in Durlston.
In Swanage, there were six deaths due to Covid-19 in November 2020 and nine in January 2021.
These ONS figures are based on a person’s primary residence, so represent where someone has lived and not where they have died.
Wareham, Sandford and Holton Heath
Nearby Wareham, Sandford and Holton Heath area, with a population approximately half that of Swanage, registered two deaths due to Covid-19 in February 2021, bringing the total number since the start of the pandemic to 11.
Corfe Castle and Langton Matravers
Corfe Castle and Langton Matravers area, which also includes Studland, recorded one death due to Covid-19 in February 2021, bringing the total since the start of the pandemic to five.
Bovington, Wool and Lulworth
Bovington, Wool and Lulworth area also registered one death due to Covid-19 in February 2021, bringing the total since the start of the pandemic to three.
Blandford Forum
Nearby at Blandford Forum, a town with a similar sized population to Swanage, the total number of deaths due to Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic is also 30, if combining the figures for Blandford Forum town and Blandford Forum Outer and the Tarrants.
Sherborne
For comparison, Sherborne, a town also with a similar population figure to Swanage but in north Dorset has recorded a total of 12 deaths due to Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic.
Vaccination clinic at Wareham Hospital
Rollout of the vaccination programme
The first Covid vaccination clinic for residents living in Purbeck was on Thursday 14th January 2021 at Wareham Hospital. The rollout of the vaccination programme to care home residents in Purbeck started on Monday 18th January 2021.
Some Purbeck-based NHS staff and car home workers were able to get vaccinated earlier at Dorset County Hospital, which was among the first places in the world to administer the Covid vaccine, starting on Tuesday 8th December 2020.
Number of coronavirus cases
The number of coronavirus cases has dropped sharply in Swanage due to lockdown measures and the rollout of the vaccine. For the seven days to Friday 19th March 2021, there were fewer than three reported Covid cases in Swanage and these low figures are mirrored across Purbeck.
Further information
- The ONS figures for deaths due to Covid-19 for all towns and villages in England and Wales are available in the February 2021 spread sheet under table 6 on the ONS website
- The map showing the latest number of Covid cases for the UK is available on the government’s interactive map
