Nearly half of England's towns and cities have seen a week-on-week rise in Covid cases as concern mounts over the Indian variant.
Worst hotspots Bolton and Bedford recorded more than double the number of infections in the seven days to last Thursday. Blackburn, Melton and Burnley also have also witnessed an alarming rise in new cases.
Of 315 local authority areas in England, 150 saw more people testing positive, while 143 saw a fall and 22 were unchanged. It comes as a further 1,979 new coronavirus cases were confirmed by the Department of Health, bringing the number of people testing positive in the last week to 15,540 - a 1.1 per cent rise compared to the previous seven days.