THE number of new coronavirus cases across Cheshire East and West has fallen sharply in the latest 24-hour figures – with one borough seeing just 16 positive tests.

New figures from Public Health England cover the 24-hour period up to 9am today, November 30.

Cheshire West, including Northwich and Winsford, saw just 16 new Covid-19 cases in that time – less than one-third of the 50 cases confirmed in the borough in Sunday’s figures.

That takes the borough’s total number of coronavirus cases to 8,940 since the start of the pandemic.

In Cheshire East, including Knutsford and Middlewich, there were 52 new cases of Covid-19 in the 24 hours up to 9am today.

That is lower than the 68 cases announced in Sunday’s figures and takes the borough’s total to 8,962 since the pandemic began.

Lower daily case numbers on a Monday have been a common occurrence in the Public Health England data throughout the pandemic.

However, today’s figure for Cheshire West is less than half the 40 cases that were confirmed in the borough last Monday, and a tiny fraction of the 256 cases announced two weeks ago on November 16.

Cheshire East’s figure today is slightly lower than the 59 cases announced last Monday and the 76 announced on November 16.

Meanwhile, both boroughs continue to see a big decline in their seven-day infection rates, with the latest figures covering the week up to November 25.

The infection rate for Cheshire West has now fallen for 14 days in a row, with the current rate of 113.4 per 100,000 people much lower than the rate of 237.9 from one week earlier.

Cheshire East’s infection rate has fallen for the eighth day running, and now stands at 124.7 per 100,000 people compared to 196.8 one week earlier.