South Kesteven has now gone nine weeks without a Covid-19 related death.

The last fatality related to the virus was 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.

However, national deaths were 33 today and 161 over the week, a figure that is slowly rising. The weekly total is 42.5 per cent of 48 cases higher than the week before.

Today, South Kesteven recorded 35 cases, compared with 44 yesterday, 31 on Monday, 27 last Wednesday and 9 the Wednesday before.

the 7-day rate is now 104.6 cases per 100,000, compared 96.9 yesterday, 49.9 last Wednesday and 42.1 the Wednesday before.

However, despite the rate doubling over the past week, it remains below half the England average of 252 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.

The figures come as testing has been ramped up significantly across the country, with almost a million tests taking place yesterday alone and 7.3 million tests over the past week.

Overall, there have been 625 cases of coronavirus confirmed in Greater Lincolnshire on Wednesday — the highest daily count since November.

The government's COVID-19 dashboard on Wednesday reported 318 new cases in Lincolnshire, 242 in North East Lincolnshire and 65 in North Lincolnshire.

The figure is 82% higher than last Wednesday' 343 cases and is the highest case numbers confirmed on one day since November 19, 2020.

In positive news, the figures showed no further deaths in the government or NHS England data today.

Nationally, cases increased by 32,548 to 4,990,916 while deaths rose by 33 to 128,301. It is the first time the UK's daily COVID infections have passed 32,000 since January.

In national news today, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been defending his plan to lift the majority of COVID rules from July 19.

During Prime Minister's Questions, Labour leader Kier Starmer said it was reckless to remove all protections in one go and called for Mr Johnson to ensure masks still had to be worn on public transport.

He warned of a major increase in cases and questioned comments from health secretary Sajid Javid that cases could reach 100,000 per day.

However, Mr Johnson said the easing was "balanced" and said the link between infection and serious disease and death had been "severed" by the vaccine programme.

He did not reveal how many cases he thought would be confirmed before August 16 – when double jabbed people would no longer have to self-isolate.

The BBC, however, has estimated 4.5million could be asked to self-isolate this summer.

Mr Johnson was set to appear before the government's liaison committee at 3.30pm where he was facing being grilled for a further number of hours on COVID among other subjects.

Coronavirus data for Greater Lincolnshire on Wednesday, July 7

10,463 in North Lincolnshire (up 65)

302 from North Lincolnshire (no change)

43 at Lincolnshire Community Health Service hospitals (no change)

454 in Northern Lincolnshire (NLAG) (no change)

4,990,916 UK cases, 128,301 deaths