Covid in Cumbria: 'some areas where progress seems to have stalled'
The number of new COVID-19 infections in Cumbria continued to drop in week ending 19th February. There were 555 new cases, compared to 728 the week before, a decrease of 24%. Hospital admissions have also been on the decrease.
However, Cumbria's Director of Public health says there are areas where "the progress has stalled", and the rate of decrease is slowing down.
Areas such as Barrow, Allerdale and Copeland continue to have infections rates above the England average of 120/100,000.
In the week ending 12 February there were a further 74 Covid related deaths.
Colin Cox, Cumbria’s Director of Public Health, warns that guidance must still be followed. He said: “This week the Prime Minister announced the roadmap for exiting lockdown. I welcome that but we must all recognise that we still have high infection rates, well above those of last summer, and we cannot just assume that infections will continue to fall. "They will only fall if we keep following the guidance and don’t act as if lockdown has already been lifted. This is a critical point and the Prime Minister has been clear that restrictions will not be eased if the data does not support it. That’s why we all must keep going for a while longer and get infection rates right down.”