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

There have been 16 million confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK and over 150,000 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, 91% of people aged 12 and over in the UK have had their first vaccine dose, 84% have had their second and 64% have had a booster.

Find out how the pandemic has affected your area and how it compares with the national average:

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Daily cases fall in January

After a sharp increase in December, daily confirmed cases fell during the first half of January.

A further 102,292 confirmed cases were announced on Wednesday.

Government figures do not include people who test positive more than once - except in Wales. Some experts suggest this means the official figures are lower than the actual number of daily cases in the UK.

Restrictions were put in place across the UK to deal with the emergence of the Omicron variant but they are now being eased. You can use our postcode look-up to check what the rules are where you live.

The red and orange areas on the map below show the places currently seeing the highest number of cases per 100,000 people. The map's key was updated on 21 December to allow for rising case numbers.

Vaccine rollout continuing

More than 52 million people, 91% 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 more than 48 million, or 84% of people aged 12 and over.

So far, about 37 million booster doses have been administered across the UK, with some 31 million in England, 3.3 million in Scotland, 1.9 million in Wales and 930,000 in Northern Ireland.

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.

Uptick in daily deaths

The average daily number of deaths within 28 days of a positive test increased in early January.

There were 346 deaths counted in this way reported on Wednesday.

Of those deaths, there were 300 in England, 33 in Scotland, nine in Northern Ireland and four in Wales.

The BBC's Head of Statistics Robert Cuffe says most of the recent increase in Covid deaths could be down to "coincidental" Covid - people whose death may have had nothing to do with coronavirus.

With the high proportion of infections in the population over the past month, the number of coincidental cases would be expected to increase.

Figures for doctors registering a death and recording what caused it will increasingly become our best picture of the pandemic's death toll - but these take longer to be published and it will be a while before we get a complete picture.

Hospital numbers remain high

The most recent government figures for the whole of the UK show 16,594 people with coronavirus were in hospital on 25 January, down from 19,052 a week earlier.

Of those in hospital with coronavirus, 575 are in mechanical ventilation beds - using ventilators to help them breathe - down from 703 a week earlier.

Although the number of hospital patients has risen in the last month, it remains below the peak of nearly 40,000 people in January last year.

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

Death toll could be nearly 180,000

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 154,000.

According to the latest ONS figures, the UK has now seen nearly 177,000 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 about 150,000 as of 14 January.

In total, there were 15,257 deaths registered in the week to 14 January, which was five percent below the five-year average.

Of the total deaths, 1,557 were related to coronavirus, up from 1,023 in the previous week.

What is the R number?

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 is 0.8 to 1.1, for Scotland it is 0.7 to 1.1, for Wales it is 1.1 to 1.5 and for Northern Ireland it is 0.7 to 0.9.