The South Kesteven 7-day Covid infection rate has continued its downward trend despite the district recording 51 cases today.

The latest numbers mean the district has seen a drop of around a third in this rate since Friday, similar to the large drop recorded nationally.

Today's 51 positive tests compares with 48 yesterday, 46 last Thursday and 61 the Thursday before.

The 7-day case rate has dropped from Friday's peak of 353.9 cases per 100,000 of population to 226.1 today, though it still remains much higher than for much of the past few months.

Last Thursday, it stood at 342.6 and 201.5 cases per 100,000 the Thursday before that.

However, despite the increases, it remains well below the England average of 375.2 cases per 100,000, which also peaked at 540 on Friday, and was 529.1 a week ago and 350.3 the Thursday before that.

The figures come amid much testing, typically a million people a day and around 7 million in the past week, thought they have now dropped a little to 900,000 and 6million.

Overall, there have been 9239 cases in South Kesteven since the start of the pandemic- equivalent to about one for about 16 residents in the district.

South Kesteven hasn't recorded a Covid-19 related death since 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 15 weeks.

The overall total remains at 270, about one for each 600 of the population, compared to the England average of one-in-500.

Overall, today, there were 618 new cases of coronavirus confirmed in Greater Lincolnshire, as the weekly number of people getting jabbed continues to fall, sparking a call to action from local health bosses.

The government's COVID-19 dashboard on Thursday reported 428 new cases in Lincolnshire, 110 in North East Lincolnshire and 80 in North Lincolnshire.

NHS figures have reported no further hospital deaths in Northern Lincolnshire and Goole hospitals trust.

Government figures, however, showed two further updates to their deaths data for North East Lincolnshire residents. On Wednesday, the dashboard recorded 599 new cases, with 363 of those in Lincolnshire, 154 in North East Lincolnshire and 82 in North Lincolnshire. There was one death reported yesterday in North Lincolnshire. Nationally, on Thursday cases increased by 31,117 to 5,801,561 while deaths rose by 85 to a total of 129,515. Vaccine figures released by the government on Thursday showed Lincolnshire had now given out 1,019,216 cumulative doses, up 13,056 on the previous week's 1,006,160 total. The increase is 715 doses fewer than the previous week's 13,771 doses. Of those 557,452 are first doses, while 461,764 are second. The documents have updated the Lincolnshire population to 634,453 using the Office for National Statistics 2020 population estimates. This means the percentage of the population over the age of 16 to have received a first dose is now 87%, while 73% have had their second second. Of those aged over 18, a total of 554,592 people have received their first dose, while 460,784 people over 18 have been double-jabbed. There have been 2,860 under 18s given their initial jabs – these include individuals who are, or who live with, vulnerable people. 980 have had their second. In North East Lincolnshire 195,315 doses have been given out, with 87,200 of those being second doses. Meanwhile, 221,723 doses have been given out in North Lincolnshire, of which 101,130 are second doses. Compared to the latest population figures, around 68% of North East Lincolnshire's eligible population has been double-jabbed, while in North Lincolnshire the proportion is 71.8%. Young people in Lincolnshire are being warned they still need to get their COVID jabs – even though infection rates are dropping. While more than one million vaccinations have now been given across the county, there has been a very definite drop-off in uptake amongst people under 40, especially those aged 24-29, and this is a picture that is replicated across the entire country. Rebecca Neno, director of COVUD and influenza vaccination programmes for NHS Lincolnshire, said: "Anecdotally there does seem to be a sense amongst some people, particularly younger ones, that since the numbers of COVID cases have been falling over the previous week, they do need not to be vaccinated. They could not be more wrong." Nationally, the debate over the "pingdemic" has continued, with the number of self-isolation alerts sent by the COVID-19 app rising to a record 689,313. The figures covering the seven days to July 21 are an increase of more than 70,000 compared to last week. Boston's own Jonathan Van Tam, the deputy chief medical officer for England, has been answering questions on BBC Radio 1 today where he revealed vaccines have prevented 22 million cases and 60,000 deaths. However, he said young people are still being taken to intensive care and that COVID variants had "diluted the effectiveness" of the vaccine. He warned of a "bumpy" Autumn and winter, but said vaccines could prevent any further lockdowns. Foreign secretary Dominic Raab has told Sky News that more countries could be added to the amber and green travel lists as the government gets "increasingly confident". The next review is a week on Thursday, however, on Wednesday the government announced fully vaccinated travellers from the EU and the US would not have to quarantine when arriving in England, Scotland or Wales from an amber list country. Coronavirus data for Greater Lincolnshire on Thursday, July 28

80,173 cases (up 618)

52,303 in Lincolnshire (up 428)

12,356 in North Lincolnshire (up 80)

15,514 in North East Lincolnshire (up 110)

2,212 deaths (up two)

1,629 from Lincolnshire (no change)

304 from North Lincolnshire (no change)

279 from North East Lincolnshire (up up two)

of which 1,324 hospital deaths (no change)

820 at United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust (up one)

43 at Lincolnshire Community Health Service hospitals (no change)

1 at Lincolnshire Partnership Foundation Trust (no change)

460 in Northern Lincolnshire (NLAG) (no change) 5,801,561 UK cases, 129,515 deaths