A FURTHER five care homes in Devon have reported coronavirus outbreaks in the last two weeks’ worth of statistics, new ONS figures reveal – the lowest number since the pandemic begun.

In total, there have been 110 suspected or confirmed COVID-19 outbreaks reported in care homes in Devon (including Plymouth and Torbay) between the weeks beginning March 3 and June 1.

That means 21.3 per cent of the 516 care homes in the county have had cases, compared to the national average of 40.8 per cent.

The latest ONS figures today, Friday, show that five more care homes in Devon reported a suspected or confirmed outbreak of COVID-19 to Public Health England, in the last fortnight since the previous data set was published, with no new outbreaks in Cornwall.

Just one new or suspected outbreak was reported in the week beginning May 25 – in East Devon – with four in the week beginning June 1 – one in East Devon and three in Torbay.

No outbreaks were reported in Teignbridge, Exeter, Mid Devon, Plymouth, Torridge, the South Hams, West Devon, North Devon, Cornwall or the Isles of Scilly.

Previous weeks had seen four, seven, seven, 12, 21, 14, 18, 13, seven and finally two outbreaks reported.

The data comes from reports to Public Health England of infectious disease outbreaks in residential and nursing homes, and includes suspected or confirmed outbreaks of COVID-19.

Any individual care home will only be included in the dataset once. If a care home has reported more than one outbreak, only the first is included in this dataset, and there is no data to confirm if the reported outbreaks are still ongoing.

In total, 28 care homes in Plymouth have reported an outbreak, with 18 in Torbay, 14 in Teignbridge, 12 in East Devon, eight in Exeter and West Devon, seven in North Devon, and five in Mid Devon, the South Hams and Torridge.

There have been 50 outbreaks in Cornwall and none in the sole care home on the Isles of Scilly.

The South Hams has now gone five weeks without a new outbreak in a care home being reported, with Mid Devon and Teignbridge four weeks and Exeter, North Devon and West Devon three weeks.

In percentage of care homes with an outbreak, West Devon has the worst percentage with 32 per cent of its care homes have reported a coronavirus outbreak. Plymouth has seen 29.5 per cent, with 22.9 per cent in Exeter, 22 per cent in Cornwall, 21.9 per cent in North Devon, 21.2 per cent in Torbay, 19.2 per cent in Teignbridge, 16.2 per cent in East Devon, and 15.2 per cent in Torridge and Mid Devon.