South Kesteven recorded 42 cases today, slightly down on yesterday and the day before, suggesting the figures may soon start heading back again soon.

Either way, the district has now gone more than 11 weeks without recording a Covid-related fatality.

Today's 42 positive tests, adds to the 46 positive tests recorded yesterday, further increasing the 7-day case rate from 342.6.4 cases per 100,000 yesterday to 345.6 today, making it the highest in months.

Last Friday, it stood at 200.15 and 131.3 cases per 100,000 the Friday before.

However, despite the sharp increases, it remains well below the England average of 540 cases per 100,000, which stood at 360.4 a week ago and 275.6 a week before that.

Last Friday, South Kesteven recorded 109 cases and 56 the Thursday before.

The figures come amid much testing, exceeding a million people yesterday and nearly 7 million in the past week.

Overall, there have been 8979 cases in South Kesteven since the start of the pandemic- equivalent to about one for about 16 residents in the district.

Nationally, 64 deaths were recorded today, 402 over the past week, but South Kesteven hasn't recorded such a 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, there have been 3,130 new cases of coronavirus in Greater Lincolnshire so far this week as Lincolnshire shows "shoots of possibility" that numbers might be "topping out".

The government's COVID-19 dashboard on Friday reported 333 new cases in Lincolnshire, 186 in North East Lincolnshire and 93 in North Lincolnshire.

The figure is 28% lower than last Friday's 854 cases – and 6.5% down on the 3,351 cases by this time last week.

There were no deaths reported in NHS figures today, however, there have been three so far this week in the region's hospitals, while government data has recorded the death of five residents.

Nationally on Friday, cases increased by 36,389 to 5,637,975 while deaths rose by 64 to 129,044.

Lincolnshire's health boss on Friday said the county's case numbers showed signs of "topping off" with infection rates dropping from 353 per 100,000 population to around 341, compared to an England average at the time of 530.

"There are just the shoots of the possibility that we are topping out," he said.

"The past four days on our data internally, we've stayed around 350. It may well just be a little bit of a plateau before we start to climb again, we'll keep a close eye on it but certainly we're staying below the average.

"What would be great is if we stay below the England average and we come down before the overall England rate does – those two things should be real positives."

He said the county hitting the one million vaccine milestone this week was fantastic, but explained "we're not done yet," adding that three in ten people were still not double jabbed.

He noted evidence was growing that the Delta variant had a 50:50 chance to pass on symptomatically between people rather than the previously thought one-in-three.

Anyone who thinks we are out of the pandemic and don't need the NHS Covid app is 'wrong', Lincolnshire's health chief has said.

Lincolnshire's director of public health, Derek Ward, explained everyone "will make their own choices" and that it wasn't a statutory duty.

However, he pointed out that case numbers were now higher than the first two waves, as Lincolnshire has seen three deaths in the past seven days and there are currently around 20 people in hospital with the virus.

Nationally, the latest data from the Office for National Statistics has shown that almost 750,000 people in private households are likely to have had coronavirus in the week to July 17.

It equates to one in 75 people and is up from the one in 95 the ONS calculated the week before.

Meanwhile, England's R number – which represents how many people an infected person passes the virus on to – has stayed steady at between 1.2 and 1.4 this week.

Public Health England has confirmed a new variant is under investigation in the UK. As of Thursday, 16 cases of the Lambda variant – first seen in Peru – had been confirmed in England.

It is not yet considered a variant of concern but will be investigated and risk assessed.

Government bosses have announced a list of exemptions to the self-isolation rules currently governing contact tracing of the virus.

Critical parts of the food industry, for instance, will be allowed to carry out daily COVID testing instead.

It comes as bosses warned of staff shortages after a record 613,903 alerts were sent to users of the NHS COVID app in the week to July 14.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has also confirmed that the Moderna vaccine has been approved for children aged 12-17.

Coronavirus data for Greater Lincolnshire on Friday, July 23

11,932 in North Lincolnshire (up 93)

303 from North Lincolnshire (no change)

43 at Lincolnshire Community Health Service hospitals (no change)

457 in Northern Lincolnshire (NLAG) (no change)

5,637,975 UK cases, 129,044 deaths