In the last week, as pub gardens, salons and other non-essential retailers have opened their doors, how have the district's coronavirus cases fared?

At the time of publishing, St Albans had 25 confirmed coronavirus cases between April 3 and April 9, up by just three cases compared to the previous week.

Per 100,000 people, there are 17 cases of coronavirus across St Albans, which is slightly up from last week, where 15 cases per 100,000 were recorded.

St Albans' case rate sits in line with England's average area, where 18 cases per 100,000 were recorded. Last week, England's average was 28 per 100,000.

So far, 7,799 cases of Covid have been recorded in and around St Albans, as of April 13.

In Herts, Welwyn Hatfield now boasts the lowest Covid case rate, with just 12 cases per 100,000 of their population. Neighbouring Hertsmere has 15 cases per 100,000, and Dacorum has 16 cases per 100,000 residents.

In North Herts, which borders the north of the district, 16 people per 100,000 are currently infected with the virus.

The highest case rate in Herts can be found in Watford, where 26 people per 100,000 have Covid. These figures, however, are down significantly from last week, where 42 people per 100,000 had the virus.

Across St Albans, 66,586 people have had at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine as of April 4, according to NHS England data from the National Immunisation Management Service. An increasing amount of residents are now receiving their second doses of the vaccine.

On April 14, government data states that, as of April 13, 2,459 people across Herts are registered to have died within 28 days of their first positive coronavirus test, with 307 of those hailing from St Albans.

But, as of April 2, records show that 2,818 Herts residents have had deaths registered with Covid recorded as a cause of death. 355 of these deaths were registered in our district.

According to the government's coronavirus dashboard, 127,123 across the UK have now died within 28 days of a positive COVID-19 as of April 13. A total of 150,419 deaths have been recorded in the UK with COVID-19 mentioned as a cause of death on the death certificate as of April 2.

The UK’s R-number, which represents the rate of transmission, sits between 0.8 to 1.0, meaning the rate of transmission is slightly increasing across the whole of the UK.

In the East of England, the estimated R-number is between 0.7 and 1, as of April 9.