Coronavirus infection rate in Portsmouth remains low as new figures are released
The coronavirus infection rate in Portsmouth remains low after new Public Health England figures were released for new cases across the country.
The city’s infection rate for the week ending Sunday July 19 was 1.9 confirmed cases of coronavirus per 100,000 people, slightly up from 1.86 the week before.
A total of 507 cases have now been confirmed in the city since the pandemic began.
The infection rate is slightly higher than Southampton (1.2) and the Hampshire authority area (1.4) but is significantly lower than the 41.37 figure recorded earlier in April.
No cases were reported on the Isle of Wight last week, so the island has an infection rate of 0.0.
Earlier this month Portsmouth City Council leader Gerald Vernon-Jackson said the city was of the UK’s 'safest cities' for infection rates despite a ‘tiny’ rise in cases in the last few weeks.
The latest Weekly Surveillance Report also has an updated watch list of 13 UK areas which have recorded a significant amount of new cases.
Four of these areas are classified as being ‘areas of intervention’ where lockdown measures may differ from the rest of the country.
These are Leicester, Oadby and Wigston, Blackburn and Darwen, and Luton.
Leicester (70.1) has been overtaken by Blackburn with Darwen (79.2) as the local authority with the highest rate of infection.
Public Health England said in its report that emergency department attendances with a Covid-19-like diagnosis remained stable, as did hospital and critical care admissions, with deaths continuing to fall.
A total of 45,677 people in the UK have died after testing positive for coronavirus, as of July 24, an increase of 123 on the previous day.
Nearly 300,000 positive cases in the UK have been recorded.