Covid: North East 'not out of the woods' despite infection fall

People in the North East are being advised to continue social distancing and wear face coverings

Health chiefs have warned the North East of England is "not out of the woods" despite the region's fall in coronavirus cases.

According to Newcastle City Council, the average infection rate across the region is 566 per 100,000 people - down from 878 on Friday.

However, its director of public health said the impact of easing restrictions on 19 July was not yet clear.

The city previously had the highest infection rate in the country.

Prof Eugene Milne told BBC Newcastle the "upwards pressure" in positive cases in the city "began to diminish at the beginning of July" with several factors likely to be involved.

'Everyone knows what happened'

The numbers, he suggested, might have been affected by people testing themselves less often and by students having left the city for their summer breaks.

He added: "A note of caution is we may not have seen any impact in changes in behaviour that followed 19 July.

"We know the city was very busy last weekend. We're waiting with bated breath to see if there is an impact from increased mixing.

"We're nowhere near down to the levels we saw last summer and everybody knows what happened after that so I think we need to be awfully careful. We're not out of the woods."

'Seasonal effect'

His Gateshead counterpart, Alice Wiseman, urged people to continue social distancing and wearing face coverings, which she said were "contributing to that reduction [in infection numbers] along with probably a seasonal effect".

"Better weather means people are more likely to be meeting outdoors and schools, colleges and universities have finished.

"But more importantly there are fewer opportunities for the virus to infect people as natural immunity and vaccine immunity increases."

The health chiefs' comments come after a five-week government support package was launched in the region on Monday.