Official rates of Covid-19 continue to fall in every area of the North East, but with thousands fewer people getting tested it's hard to have a firm idea of how the wave of Omicron caused by the BA.2 subvariant is continuing.
The UK-wide case rate has fallen to 487.9 cases per 100,000 people over seven days - based on data from April 6. This is around half what it was a week earlier, but the Government's official data shows just 533,515 tests were reported on that day. That's just under 200,000 fewer than on March 30.
However, the ZOE study of Covid-19 symptoms and the ONS survey both last week suggested that the virus' prevalence remained similar to a week earlier. On Friday, the ONS said around one in 13 people had had the virus in the past week.
