YORK now has the highest Covid rate in the region, leaving it a purple island in a sea of blue on an official map.

Latest data from the UK Health Security Agency shows the city’s seven-day rolling rate in the week to March 6 was 457.8 cases per 100,000 people, after a 42.1 per cent increase in cases.

The rate is now higher than North Yorkshire’s rate of 368.2, East Yorkshire’s of 371.2, Leeds’ of 304.6 and Hull’s of 316.4.

Because York’s rate is above a threshold of 400 cases, it means the city is shaded purple on a UK HSA map, while the other districts are shaded blue because they are all below it.

The figures came as York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust revealed today that the number of patients with Covid at York and Scarborough hospitals has fallen slightly to 189 from 197 earlier this week.

They also came as City of York Council’s latest Covid data tracker report showed that 13 care homes in the York area had confirmed cases of Covid-19 infection on Thursday, with the latest outbreak involving two or more cases reported on Thursday.

It said that in the seven days up to Monday, 85 children of primary or secondary school age tested positive at 32 schools across the York area, and 119 individuals within the University of York community were self-isolating after a positive test.