120 further coronavirus cases in Mid and East Antrim

A Coronavirus testing centre in Dalston, east London. There were a further 6,042 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK as of 9am on Saturday, taking the overall number to 429,277. A further 34 deaths were recorded.

The number of coronavirus cases in Mid and East Antrim increased by 120 in the last 24 hours, official figures show.

A total of 22,977 people had been confirmed as testing positive for Covid-19 in Mid and East Antrim when the UK coronavirus daily dashboard was updated on December 17 (Friday), up from 22,857 on Thursday.

The rate of infection in Mid and East Antrim now stands at 16,478 cases per 100,000 people, lower than the Northern Ireland average of 18,429.

Across the UK, the number of recorded cases increased by 92,503 over the period, to 11,190,354.

However, there were no new coronavirus deaths recorded in the latest 24-hour period in Mid and East Antrim.

The dashboard shows 264 people had died in the area by December 17 (Friday) – which was unchanged from Thursday.

It means there has been one death in the past week, which is a decrease on three the previous week.

They were among 2,945 deaths recorded across Northern Ireland.

The figures include anyone who died within 28 days of a positive test result for Covid-19, and whose usual residence was in Mid and East Antrim.

Daily death counts are revised each day, with each case backdated to the actual date of death, so some areas might see their figures revised down.