MORE than 300 new Delta variant cases have been recorded in Gwent in the last week.

The latest variant of coronavirus has spread quickly across the country, and is responsible for the recent rise in case rate across Wales and the UK.

In the last week, almost 2,000 new cases of the variant have been recorded by Public Health Wales.

Of the 1,935 new Delta variant cases up to July 13, 348 were found in Gwent.

Caerphilly had the most new Delta cases, with 126. Only three areas of Wales saw more Delta variant cases in the time period (Cardiff, Wrexham and Denbighshire)

There were 77 cases recorded in Newport, and 64 cases found in Torfaen.

While Monmouthshire saw 48 new cases, and Blaenau Gwent saw 33 new incidents of the Delta variant.

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First minister Mark Drakeford highlighted the issue of the Delta variant when he announced a relaxing of coronavirus restrictions yesterday.

In a statement, Mr Drakeford said: “We are entering a new phase of the pandemic. Cases of the virus have risen sharply since the delta variant emerged six weeks ago but, thanks to our fantastic vaccination programme, we are not seeing these translate into large numbers of people falling seriously ill or needing hospital treatment.

“We can be reasonably confident that vaccination has weakened the link between infections and serious illness. But there is still a risk that this third wave of the pandemic could cause real harm – either direct harm from the virus or indirect harm from, for example, people having to isolate.

“We can move to alert level one for indoor spaces from 17 July and go further for outdoor spaces because we know the risk of transmission outdoors is lower.

“We are also publishing plans for a new alert level zero, which will have fewer legal restrictions but which will still need all of us to take steps to protect ourselves.”