The final stage of lockdown easing has taken place across England today, while coronavirus cases continue to rise in our area.

Now people no longer have to maintain social distancing, we decided to take a look an in-depth look at the COVID-19 data for our area to see how it compares to previous times during the pandemic.

Recently, two statistics have been rising quickly in the past few weeks, the number of Covid cases and the number of vaccinations.

The number of Covid cases in our area is currently about six to seven times higher than it was only a month ago - with the data showing a significant increase in cases since the start of June.

However more than 50 per cent of our population has now had their second dose of the vaccine - which significantly reduces the chance of hospitalisation and death from the virus.

Hospitalisations

There have been 293 cases per 100,000 people in the latest week July 6 to 12, while the average area in England had 321.

A similar level of cases was reported over a week span in February this year - between February 1 and 7 there were 254 cases - 15 per cent less.

However when we compare the hospitalisation figures from the East and North Herts NHS Trust there is a significant difference between the two weeks.

On February 7 this year there were 155 Covid patients in hospital beds , with a peak of 175 in the same week.

Whereas on July 12 there were only five hospital beds in use by Covid patients - with a peak of six in the same week.

Hospitalisations in February were also very high as the previous month had extremely high numbers of cases, which isn't the case for July.

By looking at the weekly admissions of Covid patients we can see in further detail of how coronavirus cases aren't leading to hospitalisations.

For July 6 to12 the total number of admissions and diagnoses was only four new patients, while between February 1 and 7 there were 143 - 35 times more.

Deaths

Despite the rising numbers of cases recently there has only been a single death in months in Welwyn Hatfield.

The last death reported within 28 days of a positive test was on June 15, the next previous death was reported in March.

Vaccinations

Back in February, five times fewer vaccines had been administered - 18,438 by February 7 (roughly 16 per cent of population based on 2011 census).

On July 12, there had been exactly 76,000 first doses given out and more than 50,000 second doses (roughly 70 per cent of population with first dose and more than 50 per cent with second dose).

Despite the surge of the more transmissable Delta variant, and partial lockdown easing, the high percentage of vaccinations have clearly made a strong impact of the hospitalisations.