Covid-19 in the UK: How many coronavirus cases are there in my area?

There have been 18.7 million confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK and more than 161,000 people have died, government figures show.

However, these figures include only people who have died within 28 days of testing positive for coronavirus.

So far, 92% of people aged 12 and over in the UK have had their first vaccine dose, 85% have had their second and 66% have had a booster.

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A further 38,933 confirmed daily cases were announced on Thursday.

On 31 January, the overall number of confirmed cases jumped by nearly 850,000 as backdated reinfections and previously unidentified cases were included in the total.

Until 31 January, only the first episode of infection was counted in the official daily figures – apart from in Wales.

But now, if someone in England or Northern Ireland has two positive tests more than 90 days apart, the second is counted as a separate infection. Scotland plans to include reinfection figures later this month.

However, the UK infection survey – which tests people chosen at random – provides a slightly different picture.

Less affected by rule changes and what counts as a new case, the survey suggested infections went up again at the beginning of February – although it now shows a fall.

The yellow and orange areas on the map below show the places currently seeing the highest number of cases per 100,000 people.

More than 52.5 million people, 92% of those aged 12 and over in the UK, have now received a first dose of a vaccine.

The number of people who have received a second vaccine dose is nearly 49 million, or 85% of people aged 12 and over.

So far, 38 million booster doses have been administered across the UK, with about 31.7 million in England, 3.4 million in Scotland, two million in Wales and one million in Northern Ireland.

Last week, it was announced vaccinations will be made available to children between the age of five and 11 across the UK.

The UK Health Security Agency has warned that two doses of a Covid vaccine are not enough to stop people catching the Omicron variant, but their scientists also say a booster vaccine is 88% effective at preventing people ending up in hospital with Covid.

There were 125 deaths within 28 days of a positive test reported on Thursday.

Of those deaths, there were 99 reported in England, 16 in Scotland, eight in Wales and two in Northern Ireland.

As of 1 February, the reported daily deaths figure includes people who have died after being infected for a second time. These people used to be removed from the totals.

It doesn’t make much difference to the overall death toll (less than 1%) but it may complicate the trends in the weeks after the change takes effect.

Recently, the number of deaths in which a doctor thinks Covid played a role has been running lower than the official daily count.

It’s always been true that some people who die within 28 days of a positive Covid test do so due to an illness or condition unrelated to coronavirus. Despite this, they are still included in the official daily figures.

When there are huge numbers of people testing positive – as there were in December and January – the number of people testing positive but dying from other reasons increases.

As cases fall, this wrinkle in the data may iron out and the gap between the two ways of counting deaths may close. But it means that, at the moment, the trends in the daily death figures are harder to interpret than normal.

The most recent government figures for the whole of the UK show 11,043 people with coronavirus were in hospital, down from 11,858 a week earlier.

Of those in hospital with coronavirus, 304 are in mechanical ventilation beds – using ventilators to help them breathe – down from 359 a week earlier.

The number of hospital patients remains well below the peak of nearly 40,000 people in January last year.

The number of patients in hospital with coronavirus increased in every area of the UK during December and early January.

When looking at the overall death toll from coronavirus, official figures count deaths in three different ways, each giving a slightly different number.

First, government figures – the ones reported each day – count people who died within 28 days of testing positive for coronavirus. This figure is more than 160,000.

According to the latest ONS figures, the UK has now seen more than 182,000 deaths in total – that’s all those deaths where coronavirus was mentioned on the death certificate even if the person had not been tested for the virus.

The third measure counts all deaths over and above the expected number since the pandemic began – that figure was almost 145,000 as of 11 February.

In total, there were 13,159 deaths registered in the week to 11 February.

Of the total deaths, 1,185 were related to coronavirus, a decrease of 205 from the previous week.

The “R number” is the average number of people an infected person will pass the disease on to.

If R is below one, then the number of people contracting the disease will fall; if it is above one, the number will grow.

The government has said in the past that the R number is one of the most important factors in making policy decisions.

The latest R number estimate for England, Scotland and Wales is 0.8 to 1.0 while for Northern Ireland it is 0.75 to 0.95.