The Essex County Council area has reached a seven-day Covid infection rate of just over 200 cases per 100,000 population.

There has been a rise in the rate of Covid infection across the county, with a rise from 138.2 cases per 100,000 people in the seven days leading up to 26 November to a confirmed 169.4 per 100,000 in the week up to 3 December.

Based on the latest data on the county council's Essex Covid-19 Tracker, this had increased to 200.6 cases per 100,000 in the seven days up to 7 December. This could increase slightly as any delayed test results for the days immediately before 7 December come back in.

There has also been a 30 per cent increase in bed occupancy by Covid patients across Essex hospitals in the past week.

As of 8am on Tuesday (8 December) there were 352 patients hospitalised with Covid-19, a 30 per cent rise on the figure exactly one week previously (1 December).

This means that patients with coronavirus are currently occupying 12 per cent of total bed capacity across the county's hospital trusts.

An Essex County Council spokesperson said: "We would expect hospital admissions, diagnosis and bed occupancy to lag behind community cases by a period of four to eight weeks."

The Government is set to review the Tier restrictions each area is placed under on 16 December, with Essex currently under Tier 2 'High' level.

A link to an article on Maldon Nub News yesterday (Wednesday, 9 December) giving the latest infection rates for the Maldon area can be found here.