HERE'S the weekly column by Dominic Harrison, the public health director for Blackburn with Darwen

THE Blackburn with Darwen Covid-19 testing rate for week ending July 16 was 392.3 per 100,000 per day.

This meant we were the fourth highest for that week among all local authorities in England.

This has driven up our weekly rate of cases per 100,000 of the population for the week ending July 16 to 79.9 per 100,000.

This means we now have the second-highest rate in England behind Leicester, who are at 90.9 per 100,000.

It may not feel like it, but this is a good thing.

It tells us we are achieving together exactly what we planned, at this point, to control the spread of the virus across the borough.

In a situation of rising rates and confirmed community spread, the first and best control mechanism is to reduce risk of further spread.

We do this by finding everyone with an existing infection, getting them to self-isolate and trace their contacts to stop any further spread.

The testing increases our position in the national league table but it is exactly what we need to do to avoid further spread and a full lockdown in the borough.

Two indicators of the success of our current strategy are that while the testing numbers are high, the positivity rate is now coming down.

The positivity rate is the percentage of people testing who confirm positive.

Last week it was rising and at seven per cent and it is now down to 2.9 per cent.

That is a positive signal that we may have caught the larger number of undiagnosed cases and there may now be fewer people overall with the virus in the community.

Secondly, the number of patients admitted to Blackburn’s hospital with Covid-19 is currently not showing any significant surge in numbers.

These are both good signals – but we are not out of the woods yet.

I want to urge everyone to continue to seek testing even if you have no symptoms.

If you have no symptoms and want to be tested, please go to the mobile testing unit at Witton Park Academy School car park rather than the drive-through site next to the hospital.

You will need to register online first but you don’t have to book a time.

We cannot be complacent .

We may need to bring in further special measures to ensure we ‘exit’ the list of the top ten local authorities with higher rates over the next few weeks, but we will not go from ‘open to shut’ in a Leicester-style lockdown.

Our plans are on track.