More than 40 cases of coronavirus have been recorded across Cheshire's two boroughs today, March 29.

Some 16 cases were found in Cheshire West, with 27 from Cheshire East.

The figures mean that both borough have seen their rolling seven-day infection rates fall from the previous week — although one drop is five times the size of the other.

In Cheshire East, the rate is 46.1 cases per 100,000 people — representing a decrease of 21 per cent a week earlier.

This compares to Cheshire West's rate of 64.4 — a fall of only 3.9 per cent compared to a week before.

The data underlines the difficulties CWAC is having in bringing down the infection rate as more restrictions are relaxed.

Last week, council director of public health Ian Ashworth said: "It just doesn't go down at a rapid rate. We really hope to get it much lower. We had quite a large number of cases come through on March 17.

"We are not expecting it to go up in a significant way.

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"We have seen a small uptick in the number of people getting tests. That positivity rate has seen a small increase as well but we are still below three per cent."

Typically, it can take two to three weeks for any change in Covid-19 rules to show in new infection data — so it will likely be mid-April before today's lockdown easing will take effect.