Virus cases continue to rise as county waits to discover if it will soon be removed from highest Tier 3 restrictions

THE number of new Covid-19 cases in Derbyshire is continuing to rise as the county tries to escape the highest alert Tier 3 restrictions.

Eight days after the end of the nation’s second lockdown, Derbyshire saw new Covid cases rise by more than 300.

Some areas, including Derby, have seen greater increases, with the city once again having a higher infection rate than neighbouring Nottingham. Derby had seen its rate drop below Nottingham’s for two weeks from the last week of November.

For the week to December 10, the county as a whole, including Derby, reported 1,669 new Covid-19 infections.

Over the week to the end of lockdown on December 2, this figure was 1,329.

The county is now recording 300 new cases per day. During the final week of November, it dropped to below 150.

Experts in the county had wanted to get back to much lower figures, in the region of 50 cases a week or lower.

Case numbers are still much lower than during the height of the second wave near the start of November, when the county was seeing 4,000 new cases a week – more than double the current number – and between 500 and 600 new cases per day.

Over the course of the second lockdown, infections in Derbyshire plummeted by more than half in all areas, with some spots surpassing or hitting 70 per cent reductions.

This brought some local areas – in groupings of 7,500 people – to “suppressed” levels of fewer than three new Covid cases in a week.

However, weekly rates of new infections per 100,000 people are pushing upwards and have done for several consecutive days in four areas of the county – Bolsover (205), Derby (184), High Peak (149) and South Derbyshire (255).

Bolsover, between the end of lockdown and December 10, has seen weekly case numbers rise from 115 to 163 – an increase of 41.7 per cent.

Weekly case numbers in Derby have increased by more than a third (34 per cent) from 355 to 476.

Case numbers in the High Peak have increased from 79 to 137.

South Derbyshire has seen weekly case numbers nearly double since lockdown ended, rising from 140 to 267 (90 per cent).

Swadlincote is to be the base of the county’s first batch of rapid community testing from December 21 in a bid to drive down infections and more accurately track the virus’ spread.

It is hoped these, coupled with the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine being rolled out by Royal Derby

Hospital – vaccinating 1,000 people in the first four days – will also help bring the county down through the tiers of restrictions.

Derby itself is also to roll-out its own rapid community testing, targeted at key population groups and high infection areas.

The county and city currently sit in the most extreme measures in Tier 3 with a review to take place tomorrow, with any changes coming into force from December 19.

Here are the rates of new infections per 100,000 people for each Derbyshire area in the week to December 10, followed by the corresponding number of new cases:

■ Amber Valley: 155 cases per 100,000 people, 196 new cases

■ Bolsover: 205, 163

■ Chesterfield: 124, 129

■ Derbyshire Dales: 76, 55

■ Derby: 184, 476

■ Erewash: 113, 131

■ High Peak: 149, 137

■ North East Derbyshire: 114, 115

■ South Derbyshire: 255, 267 For comparison, Leicester had a rate of infections of 250 per 100,000 people with 892 new cases and Nottingham had a rate of 150 with 498 new cases.