Covid-19 case rates continued to fall dramatically across the North East in the days leading up to the May Bank Holiday weekend.
Even areas previously badly-hit like Wallsend West saw big falls in Covid positive tests, but there remain some areas like Cramlington in Northumberland where the virus is causing a bump in reported illness. This comes as the Government releases official figures showing that the BA.2 wave of the Omicron variant caused more than 7,000 deaths in England March this year.
The new data shows that across December, January, February and March - the four months when Omicron has been the dominant Covid-19 strain - 26,751 people died within 60 days of a positive Covid-19 test or with the virus mentioned on their death certificate. At the height of the Omicron wave in January, 8,251 people died.
