Cookham Discussion Board

May 17 is here - and with it new easing of Covid lockdown rules across England.

Pubs and restaurants will be able to open in Berkshire for the first time since the weekend in mid-December that saw most of the county jump from Tier Two into Tier Three and then rapidly into Tier Four (except Slough, which had been in Tier Three since the end of the second lockdown at the start of December).

Cinemas and other indoor attractions across Reading and other areas of the county will also be welcoming back visitors for the first time in months - and there is even the option for foreign holidays to a limited number of countries (although some of those on the list aren't actually letting anyone in).

However, the easing of restrictions does not mean coronavirus has been completely eradicated.

BerkshireLive looked at the figures for each area of the county according to the latest data, released on Sunday evening by Public Health England.

What are the Covid infection rates in each area of Berkshire?

Slough, which has usually had the highest rate in the county, continues to have the highest coronavirus infection rate in Berkshire - although still drastically lower than it was in late December and early January.

Slough Borough had 42 new cases confirmed in the week up to May 11, this was down 27.6 per cent on new Covid cases confirmed in the previous week and gave the area as a whole a rolling rate of 28.1 per 100,000.

Elsewhere in the county, there were 36 new Covid-19 cases across Reading over the seven days up to May 11 - down 14.3 per cent on the previous week and giving the borough a rolling rate of 22.3 per cent.

West Berkshire confirmed 35 new cases in the week up to May 11 - down 28.6 per cent on the week before. This left the area with a rolling infection rate of 22.1 per 100,000 people.

With 30 new cases confirmed in the seven days up to May 11, Wokingham saw a week-on-week decline of 57.9 per cent. This meant the area as a whole had a rolling infection rate of 17.5 per 100,000.

Bracknell Forest had a rolling rate of 15.5 in the week ending May 11. The area had seen a total of 19 new cases in the seven days up to that date.

Windsor and Maidenhead had the lowest infection rate of any of the six local authority areas in Berkshire as of May 11. The Royal Borough had a total of 22 new cases in the seven days up to that date - down 42.1 per cent on the previous week.

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Are there any smaller areas of the county with higher than average numbers of coronavirus cases?

The Public Health England figures also break the county down into more than 100 Middle-layer super output areas, each of which has a population of around 7,200 people.

A vast majority of those in Berkshire had two or fewer new cases confirmed in the seven days up to May 11.

The area with the highest infection rate was Mortimer and Aldermaston Wharf, which had a rolling rate of 137.6 per 100,000 people. In real terms this means there were eight new cases.

Five other areas had infection rates of between 50 and 99.9. These were Battle and Caversham Bridge in Reading, Earley in Wokingham, Newbury North West in West Berkshire and Wexham Lea and Langley Foxborough in Slough.