This is the daily number of new cases of COVID-19 reported as confirmed by pillars 1 and 2 of the UK Government's testing framework. This includes cases confirmed by the following: NHS and PHE ('Pillar 1'), commercial partners ('Pillar 2') and Lateral flow device testing. COVID-19 cases are identified by taking specimens from people and sending these specimens to laboratories around the UK to be tested. If the test is positive, this is a referred to as a lab-confirmed case. Lateral flow device tests test for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 virus and are swab tests that give results in less than an hour, without needing to go to a laboratory. Positive rapid lateral flow test results can be confirmed with PCR tests taken within 72 hours. If this PCR test result is negative, these are removed as cases.

Confirmed positive cases are matched to ONS geographical area codes using the home postcode of the person tested. Some cases cannot be matched to a geographical area because postcode information is missing or received late. This is why the Local authority and Region counts do not add up to the England total.

Positive cases are attributed to the day the first specimen was taken from the person being tested (the specimen date). If a person tests positive again within 90 days of a previous positive test, this is seen as the same infection episode and counted as one case. If a person tests positive again more than 90 days after their last positive test, this is counted as a new case.

 

For further information about the data please refer to https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/about