CORONAVIRUS case rates are continuing to rise across Wales as the delta variant tightens its grip.

Blaenau Gwent is now one of two councils areas in Wales with a rolling weekly coronavirus case rate of below 10 per 100,000.

There have been a further 163 new cases confirmed in Wales today, including five in Gwent (Aneurin Bevan University Health Board area).

For the week to June 12, the latest available, Blaenau Gwent has a case rate of 7.2 per 100,000, the lowest in Wales.

Despite the increases in recent weeks however, the relatively low rates mean that even small fluctuations in case numbers in individual council areas can have a big effect on their case rates.

Wales' overall rolling weekly coronavirus case rate, for the week to June 12, is 23.6 per 100,000, double that of just eight days previously. The Gwent rate to the same date is 13.3.

No deaths have been confirmed in Wales, for the fifth day in a row, meaning the number of deaths here since the pandemic began remains at 5,572, including 961 in Gwent.

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Monmouthshire (12.7 per 100,000) has the sixth lowest rolling weekly case rate in Wales, to June 12. Torfaen (13.8) has, with Ceredigion, the joint seventh lowest rate in Wales. Newport (14.2) has the ninth lowest rate in Wales, and Caerphilly (14.9) has the 10th lowest rate.

There have been 214,545 confirmed cases across Wales since the pandemic began, including 41,973 in Gwent.

In Wales, 2,228,532 people have now had a first dose of coronavirus vaccine, and 1,473,927 people have now completed their two-dose vaccine course.

The Wales-wide test positivity rate for the week to June 12 is 2.4 per cent. Caerphilly (1.8 per cent) has the highest test positivity rate in Gwent.

The confirmed new cases today in Wales are:

Flintshire - 23

Cardiff - 23

Conwy - 15

Wrexham - 14

Denbighshire - 11

Vale of Glamorgan - 11

Powys - 11

Swansea - 10

Bridgend - seven

Rhondda Cynon Taf - four

Carmarthenshire - four

Ceredigion - three

Neath Port Talbot - three

Monmouthshire - two

Newport - two

Gwynedd - two

Caerphilly - one

Anglesey - one

Pembrokeshire - one

Blaenau Gwent - none

Torfaen - none

Merthyr Tydfil - none

Unknown location - two

Resident outside Wales - 13

Public Health Wales figures include reports of the deaths of hospitalised patients in Welsh hospitals, or care home residents, where Covid-19 has been confirmed with a positive laboratory test and the clinician suspects this was a causative factor in the death.

They do not include people who may have died of Covid-19 but who were not confirmed by laboratory testing, those who died in other settings, or Welsh residents who died outside of Wales, and the true number of Covid-19 deaths will be higher.

The Office for National Statistics - which counts all deaths in which coronavirus is mentioned on the death certificate - puts the number of deaths in Wales much higher.