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.

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.

NHS England reported one local hospital death across Greater Lincolnshire on Friday at United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust, meaning the tally so far this week is nine, compared to 14 last week.

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

In local news, since the start of 2021, 106,000 COVID-19 tests have been carried out in the 0-18 year-olds as part of the lateral flow testing programme for schools, with "very small numbers" of positive cases.

Some 100 young people have been found to be positive with the virus, with 105,900 negative tests. However, health bosses have said rates have increased in children since returning to school on March 8, as well as more testing being carried out.

A new coronavirus vaccination centre has opened at Newland Pharmacy in Lincoln and aims to administer around 80 doses a day.

The new centre opened by Lincolnshire Co-op will be one of the options given to people when they book in for their jab via the national NHS system.

Karl McCartney, MP for Lincoln, was the only Lincolnshire Member of Parliament to vote against the government's plans to extend emergency coronavirus powers for another six months.

The vote means that the government can now legally enforce COVID-19 regulations and lockdowns until October, when it will next be reviewed.

West Lindsey's COVID-19 infection rate spike has been put down to a "pretty big" outbreak of the virus in a care home in the district, where residents have already been vaccinated, say Lincolnshire health bosses.

Public health picked the outbreak up by a routine home test programme and found a "number of other asymptomatic people" and "a couple of residents with very mild illness". They have not disclosed which care home in the district it is, though.

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.

Coronavirus data for Greater Lincolnshire on Friday, March 26

8,893 in North Lincolnshire (up 43)

301 from North Lincolnshire (no change)

41 at Lincolnshire Community Health Service hospitals (no change)

448 in Northern Lincolnshire (NLAG) (no change)

4,325,315 UK cases, 126,515 deaths