MORE than 500 people in north Essex have tested positive for coronavirus, latest figures have shown.

The Government is now providing a breakdown of cases for each council area across the country.

Previously data was only available for Essex County Council and unitary authorities.

The new figures show 322 people in Colchester have tested positive for Covid-19.

A further 269 cases have been confirmed in Tendring.

There have also been 195 positive tests in Braintree and 89 in Maldon.

Across the whole county 3,380 people have so far have been confirmed to have contracted the virus.

The latest figures came as England’s deputy chief medical officer Jenny Harries said it is currently “very difficult” to say where infected individuals picked up the virus.

Dr Harries said : “It’s difficult to say precisely where an individual got their disease because we’re exposed to multiple exposures all the time and at a time of a pandemic where an infection is fairly widespread, it’s difficult to pinpoint that.”

But when looking at a chain of transmissions, she said: “When we do that most of the transmissions are at home, so the home environment is a strong environment for finding linked cases.”

Dr Harries also said a “sizeable proportion”, around a third of people, did not have a high temperature at presentation with the illness.

She said scientists are still learning about the virus when asked about the impact of warm weather on its spread.

She said: “If you look around the world we’re seeing epidemics in warm and cooler climates, so I think there’s probably not a lot of evidence there.”

The Government says the rate of infection – the R value – is between 0.5 and 0.9 and the number of new coronavirus cases and daily death toll are both “steadily falling”.

To view the latest figures visit coronavirus.data.gov.uk.