'Amber' COVID warning from Rutland's Public Health Director
Covid levels have been rising across England since the end of May
People in Stamford and Rutland are being urged to be a 'little more cautious over COVID than they were a month ago', after the number of infections increased across our region.
The case rate in South Kesteven was up by over 40% as of 25 June, while Rutland has seen a slight decrease - but only after a large spike of its own.
In the seven days leading up to June 11, there was a rise in COVID in Rutland by 143%, with the number of people infected in the county up by 40.
Rutland's Public Health Director Mike Sandys tells us that figure was due to the Queen's Platinum Jubilee celebrations, which would have had a similar impact across the country.
But, with two new variants in circulation, he tells us it's important that residents don't think COVID is a thing of the past:
'It's almost like traffic lights, in my mind I think we've gone from being green - let's get on with it - to at the moment, it's not a red, but probably one of those amber lights - proceed with caution - so I'd urge people to be a bit more cautious than they were a month ago.'
'I think we've lost a bit of a bubble that was the Platinum Jubilee but what we are seeing is an increase in cases caused by these two new sub variants, BA4 and BA5.'
'BA2 was what was known as Omicron, and what we're seeing at the moment is these subvariants are coming on and are taking off at a rate off knots, so I think they're making about over half the cases now within the East Midlands.'
'So put the two things together, the Queens Jubilee and these new sub variants doing the rounds - that's what's caused almost this sustained increase in rates.'