The 7-day case rate in Rutland is back up a little after 6 cases were recorded today.

No deaths were also recorded, which has been the case for more than ten weeks.

As reported last week, the last recorded such death in England's smallest county was on Wednesday April 28. Before that it was Thursday March 25.

After being stable above the 200 cases per 100,000 for much of last week, the 7-day case rate fell to 165.3 cases per 100,000 on Sunday, but bounced back to 182.8 cases per 100,000 yesterday and 190.3 cases per 100,000 today.

Today's 6 cases compares with 6 yesterday, 8 last Tuesday and 5 the Tuesday before.

Rutland's current 190.3 cases per 100,000 case rate compares with 180.3 last Tuesday and 102.7 the Tuesday before. This compares with the steadily rising England average which now stands at 328.9 cases per 100,000.

However, there has been a large increase in testing recently, with 1.1 million tests today and more than 7.1 million over the past week.

Rutland has now recorded 1926 cases recorded since the start of the pandemic- about one case for every 22 residents. This compares with the England average of almost one-in-15.

The number of deaths remains at 65, the same as yesterday- about one for every 600 residents, which compares with the national average of one-in-500 residents.

Meanwhile, in Lincolnshire, the 7-day case rate in South Kesteven has almost doubled over the past week after 60 cases were recorded in the district today.

The 60 cases compares with 39 people testing positive yesterday and 78 cases of over the weekend.

But once more, there were no deaths, keeping the total at 270, with the last fatality related to the virus in the district being on Wednesday May 5.

The last fatality priority to that was Tuesday March 25, showing South Kesteven has experienced just two deaths with Covid-19 in more than 14 weeks.

Today's 60 positive tests compares with 44 last Tuesday and 14 the Tuesday before.

The 7-day rate is now 173.4 cases per 100,000, compared 96.9 last Monday and 48.4 the Tuesday before.

However, despite the rate almost doubling over the past week, it remains almost half the England average of 328.9 cases per 100,000.

The England average 7-day rate has steadily risen in recent weeks, while the South Kesteven figure has tended to fluctuate at a much reduced level before creeping upwards.

Overall, Greater Lincolnshire has passed the 70,000 COVID cases mark on Tuesday as infection rates continue to soar across the board.

The government's COVID-19 dashboard on Tuesday reported 340 new cases in Lincolnshire, 255 in North East Lincolnshire and 89 in North Lincolnshire. The total 684 figure is 37% higher than last Tuesday's 500 cases. It is also the highest daily reported cases since November 13 when 689 cases were confirmed.

In positive news, Lincolnshire hospitals have not reported a coronavirus-related death in 39 days, and for 24 days in North Lincolnshire.

Infection rates in the seven days up to July 12 have continued to rise in all authority areas, with North East Lincolnshire now having the second highest rate in England at 930 per 100,000.

On Monday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson confirmed his government's plans to go ahead with a planned easing of the final stages of lockdown – however, urged people to continue to wear masks indoors and businesses to bring staff back slowly and carefully.

Nationally, cases increased by 36,660 to 5,191,459 while deaths rose by 50 to 128,481.