Is Gloucestershire counted as south west or midlands?

[Realitea]

I’m getting different answers here. Some say it’s south midlands and I always thought it was south west.
When I check the COVID app (ZOE) the rates of people with symptoms are low yet we’re being told the south west has an R of about 1-1.3. I can’t see why that doesn’t correlate with the covid app based on symptoms, which is spot on in every other area.

South West I always thought. Certainly South Gloucestershire where I am is South West.

It's in the South West.

I wonder if the r value is still high due to the higher incidence of infection in Weston-super-Mare?

In the regional statistics it's in the South West but the covid outbreak has been more similar to the counties to the immediate north and east (Worcestershire/Warwickshire/Oxfordshire). The regional figures aren't helpful here.

I think it's more likely to do with the data being based on relatively small numbers in the SW, meaning that a small change can make a big difference in the R number. It's a bit like with percentages I think. So if there was a 50% increase in cases that seems huge, but if that's an increase from 4 people to 6 people it seems very low. It's all about different ways of presenting the data, something governments are usually very good at doing to show things more/less favourably, e.g. employment. That's just my thoughts though, I'm not an expert!

I grew up in North Gloucestershire, and our local news was midlands. Depends where you’re out are in Gloucestershire, really.

Map on here www.gov.uk/government/organisations/public-health-england

Thanks everyone. I’m sure it is south west. We pick up midlands tv though!

We're Southwest but the news regions overlap us, we get Central most of the time.

If you see a map with West Midland on it, we get lumped in there too.

Bristol and the historical to ing and fro ing of south Gloucester, Avon etc didn't help either.

If it helps they said on the local Midlands news that there had been no Covid19 deaths reported in Gloucestershire for the last few days ( I think a week?) so that implies that it's not counted in the South West for this?
Gloucester is known as the Gateway to the South West.

Definitely south west, as for tv, we used to get both, I remember Dad up a ladder twiddling the aerial because he wanted HTV and they’d increased the signal on the midlands mast so he was getting the wrong news.

Moonflower that was hospital based deaths I think. And we are definitely Southwest not the Midlands. Honest!

Yes, it's South West. Herefordshire then falls into West Midlands. The rates are high in Somerset which is why schools haven't opened and why the Weston hospital closed.

The South West is a big area, I live in Devon and I'm not sure that what is going on in Gloucestershire or Wiltshire will reflect what is happening down here.

I didnt realise it was as far as Gloucestershire. I imagine devon, dorset, cornwall, so.erset

I’m hearing a lot about Somerset having a cluster of cases at the moment but when I look on the covid symptom app, it still looks low. Maybe they’re just not using the app.

The incidence rate here is so low that a cluster, like the Weston hospital, could quadruple the incidence rate, increase R to 1+ and still be in single figures.

Which is pretty much what did happen, statistically.

Which is another reason not to believe any App will be more or less useful than any other track and trace or monitoring system.

@poppy1973

Yes, it's South West. Herefordshire then falls into West Midlands. The rates are high in Somerset which is why schools haven't opened and why the Weston hospital closed.

Erm I'm in Somerset and our local schools are open.

If there's going to be regional lockdowns, that's going to be so bad for those in North Glos where cases are coming down and there's been no deaths in the last few days. Somerset is a fair distance down the motorway, Westin approx 100 mins. Also people there are far more likely to go for a walk on their doorstep with Cleeve Hill/Cotswolds rather than travel down south.