Public Health England is releasing daily breakdowns of where all confirmed cases are (Picture: Metro.co.uk/Getty)

More than half of local authorities across England have confirmed cases of coronavirus, reveals government data.

Devon is currently the county with the most confirmed Covid-19 diagnoses, with 18, according to Public Health England (PHE), which is releasing a daily breakdown of confirmed cases broken down into counties and upper tier local authorities. It comes after the government was criticised for not being transparent enough about exactly where patients were being diagnosed.

The second worst hit authorities are currently Hertfordshire and Hampshire, which also have a total of 13 each. As of 9am Monday morning, PHE said another 26 cases were awaiting confirmation.



In London, Kensington and Chelsea is the borough most affected with 13 cases, while there have been a total of 51 across the capital.


The government said it is attempting to delay the outbreak until the summer (Picture: Andalou)

Devon has the most cases currently (Picture: Metro.co.uk)

NHS staff supporting Scotland’s public information response working at the NHS 24 contact centre at the Golden Jubilee National Hospital in Glasgow (Picture: AFP)

PHE says 67 out of 149 local authorities currently have no confirmed cases – about 45 per cent.

A total of 24,960 people have so far been tested in the UK, of which 24,641 were confirmed negative and 319 were positive. In Wales there are six cases, 18 in Scotland and seven in Northern Ireland.

On Monday, a fifth person died after testing positive for Covid-19 at St Helier Hospital in Sutton, South London. NHS officials confirmed it was a patient, in their 70s, who was ‘very unwell with a number of significant and long-term health conditions’.

Officials and experts say for most infected with the virus, they will suffer a mild illness while the ‘overwhelming majority’ will recover.

New measures – including those aimed at protecting the elderly and vulnerable – are expected to be introduced in the next couple of weeks as cases rise rapidly across the UK. Britons with ‘minor’ cold, flu or fever symptoms could soon to be asked to stay at home in self-isolation, as part of new plans.

Measures are expected to ramp up in the UK next week to contain the virus (Picture: EPA)

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The start of the UK peak of the epidemic is expected within the next fortnight, said England’s deputy chief medical officer Dr Jenny Harries. She said the vast majority of those diagnosed with coronavirus in the UK are ‘pretty well’ but that they may ‘feel a bit rough for a few days’.

Dr Harries defended the government’s decision to delay closing schools and the introduction of other stringent tactics, saying experts are assessing new cases on an hourly basis to achieve a ‘balanced response’.

She added: ‘Within 10 to 14 days we will be likely to advise people with symptoms to self-isolate and we are expecting that start of the peak (of coronavirus cases) to come during that period.’

Dr Harries said cancelling big outdoor events like football matches would not necessarily be a decision supported by science.

‘The virus will not survive very long outside,’ she said. ‘Many outdoor events, particularly, are relatively safe.’

A Coronavirus notice at St.Thomas’s Hospital in London (Picture: EPA)

During a Downing Street press conference on Monday afternoon, Prime Minister Boris Johnson told reporters the UK will almost certainly move to the delay phase of tackling coronavirus.



England’s Chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, said the balance would tip so that more and more people would suffer coronavirus rather than regular seasonal flu or other respiratory infections.

He added: ‘We are expecting the numbers to increase initially quite slowly but really quite fast after a while and we have to catch it before the upswing begins.

‘We are now very close to the time, probably within the next 10 to 14 days, when the modelling would imply we should move to a situation where everybody with even minor respiratory tract infections or a fever should be self-isolating for a period of seven days.’

Mr Johnson said that although the UK currently remains in the contain phase of the response, ‘extensive preparations’ are being made for a move to the delay phase – which seeks to put off the peak of the outbreak until summer.

Number of confirmed cases county-by-county as of 9am on March 9: Barking and Dagenham: 0

Barnet: 5

Barnsley: 2

Bath and North East Somerset: 0

Bedford: 0

Bexley: 0

Birmingham: 1

Blackburn with Darwen: 0

Blackpool: 0

Bolton: 3

Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole: 2

Bracknell Forest: 2

Bradford: 1

Brent: 3

Brighton and Hove: 8

Bristol, City of: 2

Bromley: 1

Buckinghamshire: 1

Bury: 3

Calderdale: 0

Cambridgeshire: 0

Camden: 4

Central Bedfordshire: 0

Cheshire East: 0

Cheshire West and Chester: 0

Cornwall and Isles of Scilly: 4

County Durham: 0

Coventry: 2

Croydon: 0

Cumbria: 5

Darlington: 0

Derby: 0

Derbyshire: 4

Devon: 12

Doncaster: 0

Dorset: 0

Dudley: 1

Ealing: 5

East Riding of Yorkshire: 0

East Sussex: 0

Enfield: 1

Essex: 5

Gateshead: 0

Gloucestershire: 3

Greenwich: 0

Hackney and City of London: 2

Halton: 0

Hammersmith and Fulham: 2

Hampshire: 8

Haringey: 0

Harrow: 1

Hartlepool: 0

Havering: 2

Herefordshire, County of: 0

Hertfordshire: 13

Hillingdon: 1

Hounslow: 3

Isle of Wight: 1

Islington: 0

Kensington and Chelsea: 8

Kent: 4

Kingston upon Hull, City of: 1

Kingston upon Thames: 1

Kirklees: 0

Knowsley: 0

Lambeth: 3

Lancashire: 4

Leeds: 5

Leicester: 0

Leicestershire: 2

Lewisham: 3

Lincolnshire: 1

Liverpool: 5

Luton: 2

Manchester: 5

Medway: 2

Merton: 1

Middlesbrough: 0

Milton Keynes: 1

Newcastle upon Tyne: 4

Newham: 0

Norfolk: 0

North East Lincolnshire: 0

North Lincolnshire: 0

North Somerset: 0

North Tyneside: 1

North Yorkshire: 0

Northamptonshire: 4

Northumberland: 0

Nottingham: 2

Nottinghamshire: 5

Oldham: 4

Oxfordshire: 5

Peterborough: 1

Plymouth: 0

Portsmouth: 0

Reading: 0

Redbridge: 1

Redcar and Cleveland: 0

Richmond upon Thames: 0

Rochdale: 0

Rotherham: 0

Rutland: 0

Salford: 0

Sandwell: 0

Sefton: 0

Sheffield: 0

Shropshire: 0

Slough: 0

Solihull: 0

Somerset: 2

South Gloucestershire: 0

South Tyneside: 0

Southampton: 0

Southend-on-Sea: 1

Southwark: 5

St. Helens: 0

Staffordshire: 4

Stockport: 0

Stockton-on-Tees: 0

Stoke-on-Trent: 0

Suffolk: 1

Sunderland: 1

Surrey: 6

Sutton: 1

Swindon: 2

Tameside: 1

Telford and Wrekin: 0

Thurrock: 0

Torbay: 7

Tower Hamlets: 1

Trafford: 4

Wakefield: 0

Walsall: 0

Waltham Forest: 1

Wandsworth: 3

Warrington: 0

Warwickshire: 4

West Berkshire: 0

West Sussex: 3

Westminster: 3

Wigan: 3

Wiltshire: 3

Windsor and Maidenhead: 0

Wirral: 1

Wokingham: 3

Wolverhampton: 2

Worcestershire: 0

York: 3

Awaiting confirmation: 26

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