NEW cases of coronavirus are soaring in Hampshire and Winchester in the last seven days, according to figures published this evening.

The number of new cases of coronavirus reported in the county have risen by 125 from 6,126 to 6,251 and in Winchester district from 582 to 595, an increase of 13 in the last 24 hours. The current infection rate of 476.4 people in every 100,000.

The increase in Hampshire in the last 48 hours is 197. In Winchester it is 27, the biggest increase for months.

In the last seven days the number of new cases in the Winchester City Council district has been 48. In the previous seven days the number was 12, a 300 per cent spike.

The Government does say the figures have been skewed by a computer glitch making the figures published for October 3-4 include 15,841 additional cases nationally with specimen dates between September 25 and October 2.

But no new deaths have been reported in Winchester district or in the Hampshire County Council area.

Across Hampshire 125 new cases were reported on Sunday bringing the number of infections to 6,251 lab-confirmed cases of the virus, up from 6,126 yesterday.

Nationally, 33 deaths have been reported in the UK today, bringing the number of confirmed reported deaths to 42,350, according to the ONS website.

Today the rate of infection in Hampshire stands at 452.1 cases per 100,000 people, far lower than the England average, 765.4. The Winchester rate is higher than the county but much lower than nationally.

There have been 502,978 cases of the virus across the UK. This is an increase of 22,961 in the last 24 hours, the highest increase since the start of the pandemic.

The number of deaths in Hampshire hospitals remains at 616. The figure for fatalities at the Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which includes the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester, is 162. For the other local county trusts, Portsmouth Hospital, 236; Solent, 2; Southern Health, 17; University Southampton, 199.

The R number in the south-east has today risen to between 1.1 and 1.4 meaning that on average every 10 people infected will infect between 11 and 14 other people.

The growth rate in the south east region is also edging up, and is now between +2% and +6%, meaning the number of new infections is growing by up to 6% every day.

Regarding Covid patients admitted to hospital, the figure is 16, reported on Thursday in the south-east region, that includes Hampshire. There are 95 with the condition in hospital yesterday, with eight on ventilators yesterday, the same as Friday, according to the ONS. There are no specific numbers for hospitals in Hampshire.

Total number of deaths since the start of the pandemic of people who had had a positive test result for Covid-19 and died within 28 days of the first positive test, are: Hampshire, 728, Portsmouth, 79 and Southampton, 123. The Winchester district figure, the city council area, is 77, a rate of 61.7 per 100,000 people.