Coronavirus cases in Kent have jumped by more than 2,000 in a day - a huge rise of almost a third.

With less than 24 hours to go until pubs open and with the looming threat of localised lockdowns - which have already been played down in the county - this has understandably caused quite a bit of concern.

But should we be worried?

The simple answer is no. Kent County Council has now explained the leap from 6,500 to more than 8,500, with 1,034 in Medway and 7,551 in Kent.

The alarming rise is actually down to Public Health England including historic community testing data.

KCC said: "PHE have now added in pillar 2 (community testing) data but this is historical and dates back to March. It's data we've already been aware of re local plans and can reassure that levels of testing across Kent have also been ramped up."

Rather than rising by more than 2,000 in 24 hours cases in Kent and Medway have actually increased by 12 and one respectively.

While the rise is no cause for immediate concern it does mean the rate of cases has also shot up.

In Kent there are 484.1 cases per 100,000 people and in Medway 372.1.

To put that into context Leicester's rate is 1,034.

Some local authority areas are worse hit, though, Ashford's rate remains second in the country (974.6), but in terms of new cases the town is seeing less and less each week.

The story is the same in Folkestone (625.3) and Dartford (594.3).

The only areas to see a week-on-week rise in Kent are Medway and Thanet, although health bosses have stated the relatively small jump is nothing to worry about.

Yesterday we reported how the true scale of new cases in the county were also lower than feared and the addition of historic cases will have little to no impact on that.

In total more than 1,500 people in Kent have died after testing positive for Covid-19 with more than 930 of those in the county's hospitals.

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