Coronavirus crisis: 11 days no new cases across East Devon

Confirmed coronavirus cases recorded across Devon in the past week have dropped again to a new lowest level – with more than half of the new cases being in Plymouth.

There were only 10 new positive coronavirus cases recorded between June 20 and June 26, down from 11, 17, 20, 13, 44 and 71 in previous weeks.

No new cases were recorded in the previous seven days in East Devon. Of the new cases, six occurred in Plymouth, with one in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, Exeter, Mid Devon and the South Hams.

In Devon alone, the number of new cases rose to nine, compared to the six recorded in the previous week, but in the Devon County Council area, there were just three new cases, down from four in the previous week.

East Devon has now gone 11 days without a newly confirmed case.

Friday's figures saw just one new case across the region in Mid Devon, the first new case that region has seen since June 5.

The figures come from the Government coronavirus data dashboard which is updated daily here.

It comes as experts who are advising the Government during the coronavirus pandemic say the location of where the R Rate of infection for the disease is lowest is in the South West, with a range of 0.6-0.9, down from the 0.8-1.1 estimated last week.

The South West stretches from Cornwall to Dorset and Gloucestershire, and in the previous 10 days, every single one of the 29 regions are averaging less than one confirmed case a day.

The areas with the highest number of new cases – Bristol and North Somerset – have seen just eight new cases in the ten day period.

And across the South West, the number of people in hospital with COVID-19 has dropped by a third in the previous week, going from 100 on June 17 to 67 on June 24.

Torridge remains the district in England with the lowest positive case infection rate of anywhere, with West Devon 6th, North Devon 7th, South Hams 8th, East Devon 9th, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly 13th, Teignbridge 15th, Mid Devon 24th, Exeter 29th, Plymouth 32nd and Torbay 51st out of the 316 English council districts.

In total, East Devon has had 142 positive cases.

The COVID-19 cases are identified by taking specimens from people and sending these specimens to laboratories around the UK to be tested. If the test is positive, this is a referred to as a lab-confirmed case.

Confirmed positive cases are matched to ONS geographical area codes using the home postcode of the person tested.

The data is now shown by the date the specimen was taken from the person being tested and while it gives a useful analysis of the progression of cases over time, it does mean that the latest days' figures may be incomplete.

Cases received from laboratories by 12:30am are included in the counts published that day. While there may have been new cases of coronavirus confirmed or people having tested positive, those test results either yet to reach PHE for adding to the dataset or were not received in time for the latest daily figures to be published.