THE impact the third Covid lockdown has had on the region has been shown in stark maps which show how the picture has changed in the space of a month.

Maps comparing the current situation with that from four weeks ago shows how the Covid infection rate has fallen across the North-East and North Yorkshire.

On the map, lighter, green colours show low infection rates - the number of positive cases per 100,000 people - while darker blues show higher rates.

Greens show a rate of below 99 infections per 100,000 people, light blue is 100-199, dark blue 200-399 and purple shows a rate of 400 and higher.

We've put together maps showing the picture in County Durham, Darlington, Teesside and North Yorkshire.

>>>See the map below<<<

The map, which compares the rates in the week leading to January 16 (left), with the week leading to February 13, shows how cases have fallen.

It comes as council leaders in the north of the region urged residents to continue driving down rates as the first 15m of the most vulnerable received their first Covid jab.

Representing County Durham, Gateshead, Newcastle, Sunderland, North and South Tyneside and Northumberland, they said the number of new infections were declining.

In a joint-statement, they said there was every reason to be optimistic as the vaccine programme continues to gather pace across the UK.

They said: "The way out of lockdown is to carry on driving down infection rates and reducing the pressure on the NHS."

Here's how the picture has changed in each part of the North-East and North Yorkshire:

Slide the white bar along to reveal the difference in your area - due to formatting, white spaces may appear between each sliding map depending on your device 

County Durham

In County Durham, new cases have fallen by almost half in the past four weeks with 862 tesing positive for Covid in the seven days to February 13.

The infection rate is now 162.6 cases per 100,000 people - four weeks ago, the number of people who had tested positive stood at 1,716 in the seven days to January 16.

Darlington

Although cases have increased by 2.5 per cent in the past week, Darlington has seen a big fall in the number of cases as in the week to February 13, there were 207 positive tests compared to 380 in the week to January 16.

The covid infection rate is currently stands at 195.7 per 100,000 people, a marked reduction from 355.8 per 100,000.

Teesside and Hartlepool

Across Hartlepool and Teesside, all areas have seen a fall in Covid cases in the past seven days.

Hartlepool has gone from having the region's highest Covid infection rate to seeing cases slashed with 150 in the past week, and an infection rate of 160.1 per 100,000 people.

Middlesbrough has seen 434 new cases in the past week and now has an infection rate of 307.8 per 100,000 - it had previously been 494.4 per 100,000. 

Redcar and Cleveland recorded 273 new Covid cases in the past week, meaning it has an infection rate of 199.1 per 100,000 - this is half from its previous infection rate of 400.3

And also seeing a decline in the number of new cases Stockton recorded 706 cases in the past week, with an infection rate of 357.7 - the rate in January was 415.5 per 100,000.

North Yorkshire

Across the county as a whole, the number of cases in the week leading to February 13 13 stood at 602, a major decrease from 1,926, in the seven days to January 16.

Covid infection rates dropped from 311.6 to 97.4 per 100,000 people, again over the same period.