10 Covid hotspots with the biggest rise in cases in England
Coronavirus case rates have started to fall in most areas of the country as the effects of the third national lockdown are slowly starting to emerge.
The latest Government figures of Covid-19 case rates were released yesterday for every local authority area in England.
Of the 315 local areas in England, 287 (91%) have seen a fall in case rates, 27 (9%) have seen a rise and one remains the same.
Updated figures show the number of new cases, per 100,000 people, for the seven days to January 21 based on testing.
Data for the most recent four days (January 22 to 25) has been excluded, as it is incomplete so does not reflect the true number of cases.
Knowsley in Merseyside continues to have the highest rate of Covid-19 in England, with 1,358 new cases recorded – a case rate of of 900 per 100,000 people. But this is down from a case rate of 1,179 in the previous seven days.
Sandwell in the West Midlands has the second highest infection rate, down from 910 to 833, with 2,737 new cases.
Slough in Berkshire is in third place, down from 1,050 to 792, with 1,184 new cases.
See below for the areas which are considered Covid-19 hotspots as they have seen the biggest rises in rates, according to the most recent data.
The areas with the biggest rises in coronavirus rates
- Bolsover: 565 cases per 100,000, up from 437
- Bassetlaw: 361 up from 253
- North Warwickshire: 472 up from 371
- Barnsley: 276 up from 214
- West Devon: 195 up from 143
- Bradford: 311 up from 262
- Boston: 212 up from 164
- Middlesbrough: 488 up from 450
- Wakefield: 272 up from 235
- Leicester: 564 up from 535
The list has been calculated by the PA news agency based on Public Health England data published on January 25 on the Government’s coronavirus dashboard.
A Government minister warned this morning that people should avoid booking their summer holidays for now.
Vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi told Times Radio: ‘I think it’s far too early. There’s still 37,000 people in hospital with Covid at the moment, it’s far too early for us to even speculate about the summer.’
He added the ‘priority’ has to be getting to a place where schools can be reopened.
It comes as the number of Covid-19 cases in the UK were recorded to have dropped dramatically to 22,195 yesterday as another 592 died from the virus.
But an announcement is expected later on whether all arrivals to the UK will have to quarantine in a hotel.
‘We review our border policy like any other responsible country would – Germany and Canada did a similar thing in January,’ Mr Zahawi further told Sky News.
‘We’ve done that with the pre-departure testing that is now required to enter the UK and of course with passenger locator forms.
‘There will be an announcement on this issue later on today, so I can only say to you that it is the right thing to do, because I am the vaccines minister, that as we vaccinate more of the adult population, if there are new variants like the South African or the Brazilian variants, we need to be very careful.’
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