Rutland recorded just 5 cases of Covid-19 yesterday, maintaining its relatively low 7-day case rate.

After a small rise since last week's low of 11 cases in a week, since the weekend the number of cases recorded over 7 days has remained at 16 until yesterday when this increased to 17.

The number comes amid a backdrop of a massive increase in testing nationally, including of children returning to school.

The county now has a 7-day rate of 42.6 cases per 100,000. This is well below the England average of a 7-day rate of 56.5 cases per 100,000.

The five cases recorded on Friday now gives Rutland a grand total of 1612 cases- equivalent to one case for every 25 residents since the start of the pandemic.

No deaths were recorded yesterday and on Wednesday Rutland recorded its first death in three weeks.

The total of 61 since the start of the pandemic amounts to about one-in-700, which again is better than the England average of about one-in-500 residents.

Meanwhile in Lincolnshire, South Kesteven today has recorded 36 cases of Covid-19 today, giving the district its highest case rate in weeks.

After falling sharply last month and early this month, the district reached a low two weeks ago of around 80 cases over 7 days.

This gave the district case rates in the high 50s per 100,000, which was slightly better than the England average.

But since then, barring a few fluctuations, the number of cases recorded over a week has increased to 127 (up from 120 yesterday) giving a case rate of 89.2 cases per 100,000, which is well above today's England average of 56.5 and double that of Rutland!

The 36 cases now puts South Kesteven on 7250 cases, meaning about one-in-20 residents have tested positive with the virus at some stage during the pandemic, which is better than the England average of about one-in-15.

The number of deaths today remained at 265, with South Kesteven recording one Covid-linked death for about every 600 residents, compared with the england average of about one-in-500.

Overall, there have been 791 new coronavirus cases in Greater Lincolnshire and 18 COVID-related deaths so far this week — compared to 763 cases and 15 deaths by this time last week.

The government's COVID-19 dashboard on Friday recorded 102 new cases in Lincolnshire, 43 in North Lincolnshire and 18 in North East Lincolnshire.

On Friday, six deaths were registered in Lincolnshire, none in North Lincolnshire and -1 in North East Lincolnshire. These figures include deaths both in and out of hospitals, as well as residents in hospitals outside the county. Fluctuations in data can occur for a variety of reasons including corrected data, misdiagnoses or wrong addresses.

On Friday, national cases increased by 6,187 to 4,325,315, while deaths rose by 70 to 126,515.

In national news, the UK's R number has risen slightly to between 0.7 and 0.9, up from last week's figures of between 0.6 and 0.9. This means for every 10 infected, they will pass COVID-19 on to between seven and nine others.

The government is "confident" of increasing the supply of COVID vaccines in the coming months to allow the UK to "increase the pace" of its rollout programme, a cabinet minister has told Sky News.

Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick promised the UK would remain as one of the fastest countries in the world to vaccinate its population.

A scientist has called for vaccinated people to be allowed to meet up with each other and to travel freely, saying there is no scientific reason why this should be forbidden.

Professor Tim Spector, who leads the COVID Symptom Tracker app study run by King's College London, said the vaccination programme was successful and now people's mental health needs to be considered.