THERE was a big rise in the number of York schoolchildren testing positive for coronavirus just before schools reopened last week.

City of York Council's latest Covid data tracker report says that in the seven day period to last Monday, 34 children of primary and secondary school age tested positive. This compares with just five children a week earlier.

But the report says widespread testing of secondary school children took place prior to the return to school last Monday and the majority of children who tested positive were of secondary school age and were picked up as asymptomatic cases through this testing programme.

The report also says six individuals at the University of York and three at York St John University were self isolating after having a positive test, and two care homes in the council area had confirmed Covid infections as of last Thursday.

It says that in the seven-day period to March 5, two York wards - Dringhouses & Woodthorpe and Hull Road - had seen a statistically significant fall in rates compared with the previous seven- day period. It said remaining wards had seen no statistically significant change in rates, and no wards had seen a significant rise in rates.

The report added that as of last Wednesday, 70,334 residents had received the first vaccination.