How many cases of coronavirus are in YOUR area? Map reveals breakdown of England’s infected patients

Devon is the county hardest hit by coronavirus and a total of 18 cases have been confirmed there.

Six people in Torbay have been revealed to have the infection, and a further 12 cases have been confirmed elsewhere in the rural county.

This makes it worse hit than Hertfordshire, where there have been 13 cases, and Hampshire and Kensington & Chelsea, which have both had eight. London has a total of 51 cases spread across 16 boroughs.

A daily county-by-county breakdown is now being given by Public Health England after critics slammed the Government for not being transparent enough about where people were being diagnosed.

Most of England’s 244 diagnosed cases have been among people who caught it in Italy or inside the UK.

A third person was yesterday confirmed to have died – a man in his 60s in Manchester – and a total of 280 people caught the illness in the UK, with 18 cases in Scotland, seven in Northern Ireland and six in Wales. 

Officials are this week expected to ramp up efforts to stop the spread of the virus, which is now out of control in the UK – they could end up closing schools, cancelling big events and urging people to work from home.

Confirmed cases in Devon have included a member of church in the parish of Churston Ferrers. 

A school there – Churston Ferrers Grammar School – was closed after a pupil and one of their relatives was diagnosed, and is set to reopen today after a deep clean.

At least five other schools closed because of coronavirus scares, and someone at St Margaret Clitherow Catholic Primary School in Brixham was also diagnosed.

A child and parent from Torbay were among the patients confirmed in the first wave of the outbreak and were taken some 400 miles to a specialist unit at the Newcastle Royal Infirmary for treatment.  

Coronavirus cases are spread thinly across England at the moment with the outbreak now in its sixth day after 51 cases were confirmed on March 3.

Six areas have more than five cases – Hertfordshire, Devon, Hampshire, Kensington & Chelsea, Brighton and Hove and Torbay (counted separately to Devon).

Six areas have five cases – Cumbria, Ealing (London), Essex, Manchester, Oxfordshire and Surrey.

Eight areas have four cases, 20 areas have three cases, 14 have two, 20 have one and 75 have had none so far. 20 cases are in unconfirmed areas.

The data, published by Public Health England, is accurate for the 244 England cases which had been diagnosed by 9am on Sunday, March 8.

It goes down to district level, including cities, London boroughs, counties and some smaller administrations such as Torbay, a Devon town with its own council.

More detailed information is not being released by the Government because of patient confidentiality – it is avoiding potentially identifying patients.

In Singapore, where there have been 150 cases so far, authorities are reportedly revealing the exact streets on which coronavirus cases are being diagnosed.

The number of cases in the UK is expected to spiral this week as the outbreak grows exponentially.

Exponential growth happens when a total number increases faster over time because it rises as a percentage of a bigger number.

That is, as more people catch the coronavirus in the UK they will pass it on to more people even if they are no more contagious than the first set of patients.

Ten people passing it on to three people each, for example, totals 40 patients.

Then if the 30 newly infected people also pass it on to three people each the total number soars to 130, including the original patients, and so on.

Yesterday the UK saw a jump of 69 patients, to 278, while the previous day’s increase was just 45, from 164 to 209.

Sources inside Number 10 last week said officials believe the virus ‘is highly likely that it is going to spread in a significant way’. 

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is today hosting a Cobra meeting of senior Government ministers to discuss how best to tackle the deadly outbreak.

He will tell the meeting that tackling the outbreak will require a ‘national and international effort’. 

The Cobra committee will decide whether the UK should officially move from the ‘contain’ to the ‘delay’ phase of the Government’s battle plan to deal with coronavirus.  

Such a step would require agreement from chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, and chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, who will be there.

The Government’s battle plan has four phases – the latter two are called ‘research’ and ‘mitigate’.

Last week, Professory Whitty said UK efforts are already partly in the ‘delay’ phase – which includes public health campaigns to warn people about the virus – but it has not been officially declared.

A declaration would raise the prospect of schools closing, large events like London Marathon being cancelled and relaxed sick pay rules so that people can receive statutory pay from their first day of illness.

The World Health Organization’s Dr David Nabarro said on BBC Radio 4 this morning: ‘It is not just the big events. I want to stress it is also gatherings in community halls, in religious spaces and services, and also in pubs and the like.

‘It will be that sort of gathering that the Government will look at, as well as of course the big events.’