Coronavirus has claimed the lives of more than 130 people in West Berkshire so far, it has been confirmed.

A meeting of West Berkshire Council’s Local Outbreak Engagement Board heard that 520 people have tested positive for the virus in the district during the pandemic and 132 Covid-19 deaths have been recorded.

According to Office for National Statistics figures, 64 of those people died in West Berkshire care homes after contracting the virus and 60 died in hospital.

Matt Pearce, the council’s head of public health, said 19 new cases have been recorded in West Berkshire over the past 14 days but there have been no major outbreaks in recent weeks.

He also said there have been “a few incidents in high-risk settings” since lockdown restrictions were lifted, but each outbreak has involved less than four cases and there has been “no further onward transmission”.

He said: “The spread of cases is quite dispersed across Berkshire, there aren’t any particular areas where there are five or more cases.

“This is telling us there is a community transmission across West Berkshire, there aren’t any particular clusters.”

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He added: “We haven’t had any major outbreaks, as such.

“There have been three incidents over the last two weeks, one includes a workplace, one includes a care home and one includes a health setting.

“These are isolated incidents with a few cases and they are being managed through our Local Outbreak Control Plan.”

In West Berkshire, the current infection rate is 328 cases per 100,000 people, which is lower than the national average.

It also lower than the infection rates in nearby Reading (522.3), Wokingham (368.2) and Bracknell (331.3).

However, the seven-day rolling infection rate in West Berkshire increased slightly in August, from 5.7 cases per 100,000 (August 10 to August 16) to 6.3 per 100,000 (August 17 to August 23).

In the coming weeks, the council will be launching a website with the latest Covid-19 data and information, to keep people across the district updated.

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It will also run a social media campaign that encourages people to follow the government guidance and restrictions, to prevent further outbreaks.

Councillor Martha Vickers (Liberal Democrat) said: “We’re being bombarded with figures and what we must do to protect ourselves. I think there’s a danger of people closing in on themselves.

“We’ve got two extremes, haven’t we? We’ve got the young people who think it’s ok and it doesn’t affect them, we’re trying to get them to understand that it does, it affects everybody.

“Then you’ve got people who are still shielding at home, terrfied to come out until we’ve got a vaccine, and there’s a lot of mental health issues building up there.

“So getting our message across in a balanced way is important.”

She also said it’s important to offer people “some reassurances”.

“Trying to get back to as much of a normal life as possible is also a message that somehow needs to get out there for people’s mental health,” she added.