It's amazing what a bit of sun can do to lift a county's mood. Having been blasted by floods, snowstorms, and high winds over the past winter, it feels like this week was the first inkling of spring in Cheshire.

Spring is often associated with hope and new beginnings, and that feeling has been strengthened by the government's announcement of the end of lockdown 'roadmap'.

We could be back to normality by June 21, should data allow — and there's been a real sense of optimism among Cheshire's political and health leaders this week that the county has turned a corner in its Covid-19 fightback.

So, what's changed?

Perhaps the brightest news of the week came from Clare Watson, Accountable Officer of NHS Cheshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG).

The CCG is the body responsible for running the programme in this area, and Ms Watson said they were confident of being able to vaccinate all over-16s by the end of July.

She told Cheshire West's Covid-19 Outbreak Board on Wednesday (February 24): "We are confident in terms of capacity, in terms of primary care network sites, and in terms of vaccination centres that we have the right capacity overall.

"The big challenge is cohort 10, which is 16-49 year olds by July 31. We understand that that cohort is going to be age-stratified and risk-stratified in the coming weeks because they do not want to open it up in one go.

"We are on track to deliver that. We have got great workers and lots of capacity to vaccinate patients.

"They will all be offered their vaccine by the end of July."

Her confidence was boosted by two things: Firstly, that the CCG understanding that cohort 10 would be 'age-stratified' was confirmed as the national approach by Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation on Friday, with 40-49 years olds next to get the jab.

Secondly, data from NHS England released on Thursday showed that, in Cheshire alone, 37 per cent of over-16s have already had their first dose.

Add in to the fact that CWAC Chief Executive Andrew Lewis said the Chester racecourse mass vaccination site is '"dealing with 800 cases per day but capable of doing 2,000 per day', then you can get to understand the feeling that the programme has already completed a major chunk of the population before it's even begun to fire on all cylinders.

Across Cheshire and Merseyside, three-quarters of the over-65 population have had their first jab — a figure comprising  77 per cent of 65-69 year olds, 96 per cent of those aged 70-74, 98 per cent of the 75-79 age bracket, and 94 per cent of 80-plus year olds. 14 per cent of over-80s have had both doses.

Hospital numbers fall, infection rates continue to decline slowly

The good news also extends to hospital wards, with NHS England data showing that across Cheshire's three NHS trusts, there were 77 fewer coronavirus patients on February 23 than seven days previously.

Of the 190, 82 were in Mid Cheshire facilities, 42 in East Cheshire beds, and 66 were cared for by The Countess of Chester Trust.

This total is less than a third of the peak of 610 on January 19, which is when more than 60 per cent of beds at The Countess were occupied with Covid patients.

Hospitalisations are linked to infection rates — as case numbers rise, so will NHS admissions on a two-to-three-week time lag.

In Cheshire West, the rate is 119.2 per 100,000, but that's a similar level of reduction of 14.4 per cent.

CWAC's numbers mirror the English average of 118.3 cases per 100,000, which itself is a decrease of 14.5 per cent.

However, council chiefs would like this to speed up, with Chief Executive Andrew Lewis saying: "Things are moving in a positive direction and the level of infection is continuing to reduce — but our teams are still hearing about 400 cases every week.

"It is like a game of whack-a-mole — when the outbreaks pop up we can bash them. At the moment, there's too many moles.

"We really need to keep a focus on getting levels of infection down."

His comments were supported by Director of Public Health Ian Ashworth, adding: "We have come a long way and a considerable way but we are still in the high levels as experienced in November.

"We have to get that infection rate down… before those stages of the road map come into play.

"Ours still comes down in steps along the way and we want to get it down as quickly as possible."

What does this mean?

The crucial challenge for the borough was alluded to by Mr Ashworth. As seen in Greater Manchester last summer, if restrictions are eased before case rates are near-zero, then new infections will jump quickly.

So, residents are being reminded to stick to the rules in place now — by both CEC and CWAC leaders Sam Corcoran and Louise Gittins — before the effects of the 'roadmap' come in.

However, one caveat to this is that the Prime Minister has committed to be led by 'data, not dates' with the UK's unlocking — so it's not do-or-die by March 8.

For now, lockdown remains — but there's a hint of spring to keep us going.