The BA.2 Covid-19 subvariant is keeping the pressure on the North East's hospitals, with the numbers of patients on the wards beginning to creep up once again.
Though far fewer people are in hospital with Covid-19 than during the height of the Omicron wave in January, each of the main five hospital trusts in the region still has a substantial number of patients on the wards who have tested positive for the virus.
In Newcastle's Freeman and Royal Victoria Infirmary, there were 68 positive patients on the wards on March 15, which is the last date for which figures are publicly available. By comparison, for several days in mid-February there were just 25 people on the wards who had tested positive.
