The number of new coronavirus cases recorded across Devon and Cornwall in the past week has fallen to its lowest level since the first cases were confirmed at the start of March.

Only 11 new positive coronavirus cases were recorded between June 13 and June 19, down from 17, 20, 13, 44 and 71 in previous weeks.

Of the new cases, five occurred in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, with three in Exeter, and one in East Devon, Plymouth and Torbay. No new cases were recorded in the previous seven days in the South Hams, Teignbridge, Mid Devon, North Devon, Torridge and West Devon.

Nearly half of the cases in the last week were recorded on Saturday, with only new six cases across the two counties having been recorded in the previous six days.

In Devon alone, the number of new cases again fallen in the previous seven days, with six recorded this week compared to eight last week.

Across the two counties, a total of 2,013 positive cases have now been recorded. The 2,000 milestone had been reached last Friday, with the milestone of 1,900 cases was reached on May 14, with 1,800 on May 6, showing the slowdown of new cases being confirmed despite the increase in testing capacity.

West Devon has now gone a six weeks without a new case being confirmed with the last case in the district being May 8, while Torridge and North Devon have also gone more than four weeks since their last new cases were confirmed on May 21.  Teignbridge is a day short of going three weeks without a new case, while Mid Devon has gone two weeks and the South Hams exactly one week.

The figures come from the Government coronavirus data dashboard which is updated daily at https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/#category=ltlas&map=rate

It comes as experts who are advising the Government during the coronavirus pandemic say the location of where the R Rate of infection for the disease is lowest is in the South West, with a range of 0.6-0.9, down from the 0.8-1.1 estimated last week.

The South West stretches from Cornwall to Dorset and Gloucestershire, and in the previous 10 days, every single one of the 29 regions are averaging fewer than two confirmed cases a day.

Torridge remains the district in England with the lowest positive case infection rate of anywhere, with the South Hams 6th, West Devon 7th, North Devon 8th, East Devon 10th, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly 13th, Teignbridge 16th, Mid Devon 24th, Exeter 29th, Plymouth 32nd and Torbay 52nd out of the 316 English council districts.

Torridge is also the area with the third lowest number of cases, with only Rutland – the small historic county in England, and the City of London, an administrative region covering the Square Mile and populated by just 9,000 people – having had fewer cases.

In total, Torridge has had just 36 positive cases, with 53 in West Devon, 82 in the South Hams, 92 in North Devon, 102 in Mid Devon, 142 in East Devon, 148 in Teignbridge, 173 in Exeter, 224 in Torbay, 368 in Plymouth and 593 in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.

The COVID-19 cases are identified by taking specimens from people and sending these specimens to laboratories around the UK to be tested. If the test is positive, this is a referred to as a lab-confirmed case.

Confirmed positive cases are matched to ONS geographical area codes using the home postcode of the person tested.

The data is now shown by the date the specimen was taken from the person being tested and while it gives a useful analysis of the progression of cases over time, it does mean that the latest days’ figures may be incomplete.

Cases received from laboratories by 12:30am are included in the counts published that day. While there may have been new cases of coronavirus confirmed or people having tested positive, those test results either yet to reach PHE for adding to the dataset or were not received in time for the latest daily figures to be published.