THE number of Covid cases confirmed across Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole is set to fall even further by the end of the month, a predictive map suggests.

According to experts at Imperial College London, the BCP area has just a 21 per cent chance of recording more than 50 cases per week by December 27.

Currently, the area has a 34 per cent chance of documenting 50 cases over seven days.

Wider Dorset has a four per cent probability which will increase to just six per cent by December 21.

Elsewhere, the New Forest has a 62 per cent chance which will fall slightly to 57 per cent by next week.

Bournemouth Echo:

The map categorises areas as ‘hotspots’ if they have between a 75 per cent and 100 per cent chance of recording more than 50, 100, 200, 300 or 500 cases per week.

The chance of recording more than 100 cases per week is 0 per cent in Dorset, one per cent in BCP and 12 per cent in the New Forest.

Imperial College London says: “In the map, we show the probability of an area being a hotspot in the next one, two and three weeks. The projections for hotspot assume no change in interventions and human behaviour since a week before the last observed data.”

Areas currently predicted to record the highest number of new cases later this month include parts of Kent, Essex and London.

The whole of Dorset is currently under Tier 2 Covid measures which means households are unable to mix indoors and the rule of six applies outdoors.

On Wednesday, the tier measures will be reviewed for the first time since they were introduced when the last national lockdown ended on December 2.

Data from Public Health Dorset on Friday showed 249 cases were confirmed in the BCP area in the seven days from November 29 to December 5, compared to 339 the previous week.

In Dorset, 150 cases were recorded during the same period, down from 167 previously.

The rate per 100,000 people for the BCP area is 63.0 and 39.6 in Dorset. These were 85.8 and 44.1 respectively the previous week.