Rutland's 7-day case rate is up again but it is still over a fifth lower than it was last Thursday.

The county is also fast approaching 9 weeks without a single fatality.

Today, England's smallest county recorded 26 cases compared with 13 positive tests yesterday and 23 on Tuesday. There were 14 last Thursday and 21 the Thursday before.

This gives the district a 7-day infection rate of 276.7 cases per 100,000 of population, compared with 247.1 yesterday, 237.2on Tuesday, 328.6 last Thursday and 353.3 two weeks ago.

The county now has recorded 3166 having tested positive with the virus since the pandemic started- about one-in-13 of its population- better than England's one-in-9 of the population.

Rutland has now exceeded 8 weeks without a Covid-related fatality.

Public Health England figures say the last such death was on the weekend of July 25.

Since the pandemic started, 66 county residents have died within 28 days of testing positive. This is about one for every 600 residents, which compares with the national average of one-in-500 residents.

Prior to the county's latest fatality, the last recorded such death in England's smallest county was on Wednesday April 28. Before that it was Thursday March 25.

Nationally, 36,710 people tested positive today, giving a total of 231,241 over the past week, an increase of 19,938 (9.4%) over the week before.

The number of deaths increased by 182 across the UK today, giving a total of 998 over the week, an increase of 34 (3.5%) over the week before.

Patients admitted on September 19, the latest date available was 714, or 5885 over the week, a drop of 1080 or 15.5 per cent over the week before.

There were 969,173 people tested yesterday, giving 6,673,864 over the past week, a drop of 469,897 (-6.6%) over the week before.

In national news, vaccine bosses said COVID-19 will be similar to the common cold by next Spring.

The designer of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has told a Royal Society of Medicine webinar that that COVID-19 will become less virulent over time and there was "no reason" to think it would become more.

"We normally see that viruses become less virulent as they circulate more easily and there is no reason to think we will have a more virulent version of Sars-CoV-2," said Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert.

"We tend to see slow genetic drift of the virus and there will be gradual immunity developing in the population as there is to all the other seasonal coronaviruses."

She was backed by Professor Sir John Bell, regius professor of medicine at Oxford University, who said: "If you look at the trajectory we're on, we're a lot better off than we were six months ago."

"The pressure on the NHS is largely abated. If you look at the deaths from COVID, they tend to be very elderly people, and it's not entirely clear it was COVID that caused all those deaths," he told Times Radio.

"So I think we're over the worst of it now and I think what will happen is, there will be quite a lot of background exposure to Delta."

Elsewhere, the Moderna boss Stéphane Bancel told a Swiss newspaper that there was enough production of vaccines and booster shots to ensure the pandemic will be over in a year.