South Kesteven has maintained a low 7-day infection rate, while the national death today increased by just 3 today.

South Kesteven has also gone more than 5 weeks without a Covid-19 related death.

But a further change today in how the numbers are calculated, prevents a meaningful comparison with yesterday.

The published 7-day infection rate now stands at 11.9 cases per 100,000, based on 17 recorded cases (an increase on the 16 yesterday, according to the government's UK Covid-19 tracker.

This is just over half the England average of 21 cases per 100,000 today and less than half the 24.6 South Kesteven's 7-day case rate was a week ago.

South Kesteven now has a total of 7600 cases since the start of the pandemic, which compares with 7599 yesterday and 7612 on Monday.

Whilst the figures fluctuate, the latest 7-day figures remain among the lowest since last year and less than a thirtieth of figures earlier in the year when the weekly rate exceeded 400 cases per 100,000.

The number of deaths has remained at 266 for more than 5 weeks now. This means that around one-in-600 residents have died within 28 days of a positive test since the pandemic started, which compares with an England average of one-in-500.

Overall, there have been no COVID-related deaths recorded in Greater Lincolnshire in the last 12 days, with just 18 new coronavirus cases reported on Wednesday.

The government's COVID-19 dashboard recorded 16 new cases in Lincolnshire, two in North East Lincolnshire, but -1 in North Lincolnshire. Fluctuations in data can occur for a variety of reasons including corrected data, misdiagnoses or wrong addresses.

NHS England has also reported no new local deaths across Greater Lincolnshire's hospitals, which currently stand at 1,306 since the pandemic started.

On Wednesday, national cases increased by 2,696 to 4,452,527, deaths rose by three to 127,694, with 70% of UK adults have now had their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

In local news, Lincolnshire's NHS Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has apologised after a Lincoln resident was turned away at the Showground vaccination site, despite having a booking, due to the unavailability of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine.

The CCG said there is a large number of under 40s eligible to have a Pfizer or Moderna dose in Lincolnshire, after the government decided that most people below the age of 40 will get an alternative to the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine due to a link with rare blood clots.

Since Monday, Greater Lincolnshire as well as England in general have seen a fall in infection rates despite the fast-spreading Indian variant.

Only South Holland and Boston have seen increases as they top the region with the highest rates.

West Lindsey has the lowest infection rate in Greater Lincolnshire with 8.4 per 100,000 of the population having COVID-19.