PART of north Essex now has one of the highest coronavirus infection rates in the country, new figures have revealed.

Tendring’s coronavirus infection rate continues to rise and is now the tenth highest in England.

In the seven days to January 7, the infection rate in Tendring was 1,201.5 cases per 100,000 people, with 1,761 cases confirmed in seven days.

The infection rate increased from 764.9 cases per 100,000 people a week previously.

This is an increase of about 57 per cent and the area has the fifth fastest rising infection rate in England.

Colchester’s coronavirus infection rate is 866.4 cases per 100,000 people, down from 1,004.1 in the seven days to January 5.

There were 1,687 confirmed cases of Covid-19 across the borough in the seven days to January 7.

The infection rate has risen from 753.4 cases per 100,000 compared with a week previously.

The latest stats show another six patients have died at the East Suffolk and North Essex Foundation Trust (ESNEFT) which runs Colchester and Ipswich hospitals.

There have now been a total of 661 deaths of Covid patients at the trust.

As of Friday there were 430 Covid patients in both the trust’s hospitals, which is three times the amount seen during the first peak of the virus in April.

Intensive care at both hospitals are full, despite both doubling in size to cope with demand.

New data from the Office for National Statistics shows there were more deaths registered in 2020 than in any year since 1918.

A total of 608,002 deaths were registered in 2020, the highest total since the Spanish Flu outbreak.

The population was lower back in 1918, however, so experts say the number of deaths last year was comparably a lot smaller than 1918.

Sarah Caul, ONS head of mortality analysis, said: “The population has changed and grown over time, so in many respects you’d expect the number of deaths to have increased.”

“Age-standardised mortality rates (ASMRs) take into consideration both the population size and age structure, allowing us to compare over time.

“You would expect more deaths in a population with more old people, and ASMRs even out the population differences so that you compare like with like.”

The current ASMR is estimated to be 1,043.5 deaths per 100,000 population, according to provisional ONS data.

This would be the highest mortality rate since 2008.

The ONS also compared the total number of deaths registered in 2020 with the long-term average, to see how many extra deaths – or “excess deaths” – had occurred.

The overall number of deaths registered in England and Wales in 2020 was provisionally 75,925 higher than the average for 2015 to 2019.

It was also 77,161 higher than the number registered in 2019 – the biggest year-on-year increase since 1940.