New figures show soaring rate of Covid infections across North East

The list, calculated by the PA news agency using data published yesterday, Friday, January 14, on the Government’s coronavirus dashboard, shows Hartlepool, South Tyneside and Sunderland are all among the five UK areas with the biggest rises in week-on-week rates.

Of the 377 local areas in the UK, 11 (3%) have seen a week-on-week rise in rates and 366 (97%) have seen a fall.

Middlesbrough has the highest rate in the UK, with 4,005 new cases in the seven days to January 10, the equivalent of 2,834.7 per 100,000 people.

This is up from a rate of 2,731.4 for the seven days to January 3.

Hartlepool has the second highest rate, up from 2,313.6 to 2,718.6, with 2,551 new cases.

Stockton has the third highest rate, up from 2,803.7 to 2,542.3, with 5,019 new cases.

The five UK areas with the biggest week-on-week rises are:

Darlington (1,758.8 to 2,256.9)

Hartlepool (2,313.6 to 2,718.6)

South Tyneside (2,164.3 to 2,534.2)

Sunderland (2,163.1 to 2,519.0)

Torbay (1,141.6 to 1,339.0)

The figures, for the seven days to January 10, are based on the number of people who have tested positive for Covid-19 in a lab-reported test, plus:

– in England, positive rapid lateral flow tests that do not have a negative confirmatory lab-based polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test within 72 hours.

– in Northern Ireland, positive rapid lateral flow tests.

The rate is expressed as the number of new cases per 100,000 people.

Data for the most recent four days (January 11-14) has been excluded.

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