PLANS to get the country out of lockdown need to be 'very cautious', according to Swindon's health chief.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to reveal the Government’s roadmap out of lockdown on Monday.

Borough’s director of public health Steve Maddern told the Adver: “Any plans to get us out of lockdown is going to be welcomed but I think we need to be very cautious on how that is done to make sure that we don’t undo all the good work that we have done.

“Although the case rate in Swindon has continued to decline since the start of January, the rate in Swindon, South West and England is still high.”

Mr Maddern said yesterday that the number of Covid cases had dropped.

As of yesterday, the case rate in Swindon was 94.1 per 100,000 – down from 134.6 last week.

There were 2,268 symptomatic tests done in the past week. This includes 160 at the Broadgreen site, 1,081 at the Wroughton park and ride, 423 at the civic annex mobile unit and 604 postal kits – down from 2,802 the previous week.

The council launched the community symptom-free testing this week and did 252 tests – none were positive.

Only early years workers, carers and the borough’s staff were allowed to be tested at one of the two sites – the Foundation Park at County Ground and Waterside Park in Cheney Manor Industrial Estate.

Mr Maddern said: “I'm really pleased to see that people are using it, but more to see that we haven’t seen any positive results either.

“We would be looking to expand to wider work groups next week, and we should be having new sites coming on from the end of next week and beyond.

“It’s looking positive. We’ve made a really good start this week, we wanted to do a relatively soft launch to make sure that the process works properly.”

He added: “The expectation around community testing is that it’s in place until March 31, but it needs to be in place longer to be more impactful."

Cases have reduced across all age ranges, with a concentration of cases between 30 and 34 years old. There were around 130,000 doses of a Covid vaccine in Wiltshire and 50,000 in Swindon, according to Mr Maddern.

Three new coronavirus deaths have been recorded at GWH in the latest 24-hour period.

NHS England figures show 298 people had died in hospital at Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust as of 5pm on Thursday.