Maldon district now has the lowest Covid-19 infection rate of all 12 local authority areas in the county, at 7.7 cases per 100,000.

The news comes as NHS data reveals that up to 18 April, 38,155 people in Maldon district had received at least one dose of a Covid-19 jab.

This is around 70 per cent people living in Maldon district and aged 16-plus, according to the latest available population data.

The infection figures for the seven days up to Thursday, 15 April - considered the latest complete data as it allows for all test results to come back in - shows an infection rate exactly the same as for the week prior to that, leading up to Thursday 8 April.

It represents as 99.2 per cent decrease from the peak infection rate for the district in late December/early January.

In the seven days to 15 April, there were a total of 198 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the Essex county area. This excludes Thurrock and Southend, which are unitary authorities. The means a weekly case rate for Essex of 13.3 per 100,000 people.

The highest weekly case rates were in Castle Point and Brentwood, with rates of 17.7 and 19.5 per 100,000 respectively.