A TOTAL of 31 new coronavirus cases have been confirmed in North Wales in the last day, the latest data shows.

Public Health Wales figures released on Thursday show that of these, 10 were in Flintshire, six in Conwy, five in Wrexham, four in Gwynedd, three in Denbighshire and two on Anglesey.

On Tuesday, the Leader reported that Flintshire, Denbighshire, Conwy and Anglesey are all being closely monitored by Public Health Wales as areas under threat of localised lockdowns.

The latest figures take Flintshire's total number of confirmed cases to 897, Denbighshire's to 889, Conwy's to 828 and Anglesey's to 510.

Across Wales as a whole, 348 new cases of coronavirus have been confirmed in the last 24 hours - with one person who had tested positive having sadly died.

To date, 484,198 people in Wales have undergone coronavirus tests, with 21,896 testing positive.

The number of suspected coronavirus-related deaths in Wales stands at 1,606.

Dr Robin Howe, incident director for the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak response at Public Health Wales, said:“Public Health Wales welcomes the launch of the new NHS COVID-19 app today (Thursday).

“The app forms a central part of the NHS Wales Test Trace Protect programme. We would encourage as many people to download and use the app as possible to help prevent the spread of coronavirus.

“Some of the new restrictions announced earlier this week around pubs and restaurants will come into force today. These restrictions mean that pubs, restaurants and other licensed premises must close at 10pm, and offer table service only. Off licenses, including supermarkets and other retail outlets, must also stop selling alcohol at 10pm.

“The ‘rule of six’ means that only six people from the same extended household can meet indoors.

“The council areas of Cardiff, Swansea, the Vale of Glamorgan, Carmarthen, Anglesey, Conwy, Denbighshire and Flintshire are all areas of concern to us and we are watching the data from there carefully, but numbers of cases are increasing in all parts of Wales so there is no room for complacency in any area."

Dr Howe added: "“We are also seeing an increase in the number of people who are seriously ill and have been admitted to hospital with COVID-19.

“We are concerned that much of the good work conducted over the past few months is at risk of going to waste. If the situation continues to worsen, we may find ourselves at the same levels of infection that we experienced earlier this year in March and April; and with that comes the potential for more extended restrictions to be imposed nationally."