Public health leaders say the end of free Covid tests and less availability of case data is a cause for concern.

Dr Anjan Ghosh, Kent County Council's new director of public health, said the living with Covid measures imposed by the government presented new challenges in this stage of the pandemic.

The newly-appointed director said the recent rise in Covid cases in the county on last week's number was not entirely unexpected.

The county has seen a 78% rise in cases since last week, more than doubling in Swale and Ashford. Gravesham is currently the only area which has an infection rate below the national average.

Dr Ghosh explained to councillors during a meeting of the Kent and Medway joint health and wellbeing board yesterday (Tuesday, March 15) how he was concerned about the end of free testing for the majority of the population and how accessing data on cases will change.

He said from next month the amount of case data local authorities are able to access will decrease.

The funding for the ZOE and REACT studies will also end, which he criticised as an "oversight".

He said: "We are going on the dark side of the moon from next month.

"So at a time when actually cases might increase, we will actually not have that much data, so there's a bit of a risk there."

James Williams, Medway Council's director of public health, added how the level of data in the past allowed health leaders to identify the emergence of the Alpha - or Kent variant - in November 2020.

He said: "We won't have a speedy way at a local level to identify what's what.

"We still have access to some data, but not the level we would require in order to be really on the front foot at a local level."

Both public health leaders explained how although the provision of free lateral flow testing in the community would end, in certain places – such as NHS settings, care homes, and Special Education Needs schools – testing will continue and data from those places will be available to local authorities, who will be able to use them as an indicator for what is happening in the wider area.

Mr Williams added: "If we've got outbreaks, so if there's an issue, we will be able to surge into areas and do specific case finding to manage those kind of issues, but we won't be able to provide free test kits because we will not receive them.

"They won't be distributed to us unless we have a change in circumstances and we have a new variant or some of the kind of thing that means we need to go back to scaled testing."