Coronavirus in the UK: How many have died or tested positive where you live – and where the latest hotspots are
The number of new daily coronavirus cases has been falling steadily during this year’s lockdown and the number of deaths continues to decrease.
Sky News has put together a series of indicators to help you gauge how the situation has changed in the last few months, how it is looking right now and the risk to you personally.
What’s happening across the country?
The COVID-19 pandemic in the UK appears to have slowed down following a peak for infection rates and deaths in January which broke records set during the first peak last spring.
High vaccination rates among the elderly and vulnerable have contributed to this decline.
Confirmed cases have flattened out again but this could be due to the number of tests now available.
But every local authority is different. The chart below can show you how many new confirmed cases have been recorded every day in your area.
Enter the name of your lower-tier local authority (not your county) to find out what’s been happening.
Comparisons between recent and past cases should be made with caution. The number of confirmed cases is heavily dependent on how many people are tested – and who they are.
This has changed significantly since the start of the pandemic, with the number of tests processed each day increasing significantly. Community testing has also expanded, whereas previously access was limited to symptomatic patients and key-workers.
The number of confirmed cases is also a fraction of the total cases.
The true figure is unknown, as many infected with coronavirus either do not show any symptoms or, perhaps, aren’t so badly affected that they have gone for a test. And only those who have tested positive are recorded.
Since April, the graph below shows the share of tests that have had a positive result.
The World Health Organisation said in May that, in order for an epidemic to be under control, less than 5% of tests in the last 14 days should be positive, so long as at least one out of every 1,000 people overall is being tested every week.
Which areas are currently worst?
The number of people who have tested positive in the last two weeks – called the two-week rate – is a useful indicator of where the situation is worst at any one time.
The following table ranks local authorities by two-week rate – the higher the number, the more people have tested positive per person in the last fortnight.
This same information on a map shows how higher rates are occurring in geographic clusters. This is important as it shows the likelihood of meeting someone who is infectious who lives nearby.
Where are things getting worse or better?
The table below shows the areas where the number of new cases are rising and falling. It shows only areas with more than 20 new COVID-19 cases recorded in the last two weeks.
Is the virus spreading?
The way of measuring the speed at which the virus is passing from person to person is to look at the reproduction number. When this R number is well below 1, a disease dies out.
R varies in different populations and it changes over time. It is very much affected by people’s behaviour and restrictions such as lockdown.
The government is publishing SAGE‘s estimate of R every week. This number does not come from a single model, but SAGE uses different academic groups to come to a consensus.
Where has the virus hit hardest?
The two tables below show the areas with the highest rates of COVID-19-related deaths and confirmed coronavirus cases since the beginning of the epidemic in the UK. In both tables, the rates are the number of people who have died or are found to have been positive per 100,000 population in that authority since March.
COVID-19 deaths are all those that have coronavirus mentioned on a death certificate.
Cases shown in this table include those found from tests done by the NHS and Public Health England , and commercial partners working in local communities.
COVID-19 case and death data should be treated with some caution, as not everyone who has contracted the disease has been tested and, therefore, counted.
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