YORK has retained its 'red' rating over the number of confirmed new coronavirus cases recently - and fresh cases have been confirmed this evening

However City of York Council says the city still has a lower rate than the regional and national averages.

Public Health England awards 'RAG' ratings by comparing the number of new cases over a 14 day period with the previous 6 weeks, and they indicate if the previous trend is worsening.

York was given a red rating for the first time last Friday and the council says the latest such rating was triggered by a higher than expected number of cases per 100 tests twice in the last 14 days - six cases with a specimen date of August 16 and seven with a specimen date of August 21.

It said: "We know that in recent weeks the number of cases have been low in York, which has an effect on the thresholds used to determine the RAG rating - a small change can mean the difference between a red, amber and green rating."

It said this should not be considered in isolation but in context alongside other factors such as the recent total number of cases, Covid related deaths, outbreaks as well as changes in the local testing regime and local hotspot analysis.

It said that in the latest weekly National Covid-19 Surveillance Report, released on August 21 and covering the week up to August 18, York was ranked 20th out of 149 local authorities.

It said the latest validated 7 day rate of new Covid-19 cases per 100,000 population for York was 7.12, for the seven day period up to August 21, which was lower than the national (11.3) and regional (15.6) averages. It said only16 people tested positive out of 1,943 who were tested.

Public Health England said this evening that another two cases had been confirmed in the York council area, taking the total to 961.

It said another seven cases had been confirmed in the North Yorkshire County Council area, taking the total to 2,710, and another two had been confirmed in the East Riding of Yorkshire Council area, taking the total to 1,705.