Wirral's coronavirus rate remains the lowest in the Liverpool City Region, as cases fall below 2,000.

In the week up to January 21, 1,833 cases were recorded in the borough at a rate of 566 per 100,000.

That is a major fall on the rate of 811 per 100,000 seen just a week earlier, with 2,629 cases registered in the week up to January 14.

The borough's rate is noticeably lower than some of the City Region's virus hotspots.

Knowsley's infection rate is 901, a high figure but one which has fallen from 1,179 in last week's numbers.

Halton's rate has decreased from 933 to 674 in the same period, while Liverpool's rate is now 603, down from 885.

St Helens was slower to begin the downslope of its third wave, but on a week-by-week comparison its infection rate has also fallen, from 832 to 703.

Sefton recorded the second-lowest rate in the City Region at 576, down from 891 in last week's figures.

Despite the numbers looking positive for Wirral, the extent of the decline in cases in the borough should not be exaggerated.

On December 3, the day after the second lockdown ended, the borough's infection rate was just 52 per 100,000 with 169 infections recorded.

It rose to 214 by Christmas Day, before rocketing to 982 at its peak on January 8.

In other words, Wirral needs to see many more weeks of falling infection numbers before the pandemic can be said to be under control locally.

The impact of a surge in cases over Christmas and early January can be seen in the amount of people in Wirral's hospitals with coronavirus.

On January 19, 272 virus patients were in Wirral's hospitals.

Not only is that 20 more than in the previous week's figures, it is more than double the figure of 131 COVID-19 patients in the borough's hospitals at the peak of the first wave last April.

To get this number down as far as possible, infection rates will need to keep falling and the vaccination programme must continue to meet its targets.