HULL has become England’s worst coronavirus hotspot after nearly 2,000 new cases were reported in a week, new figures show.
The East Yorkshire city has an infection rate of 726.8 cases per 100,000 people – overtaking Oldham which has a rate of 720.8.
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A total of 1,888 new coronavirus cases were reported in the seven days up to November 7 – a sharp jump from the 1,134 cases reported in the week to October 31.
Worrying data from Public Health England shows that infection rates have gone up in 218 of 315 local council areas, despite large swathes of the population having been under lockdown restrictions for months.
Second-placed Oldham has seen a slight dip in Covid cases, reporting an infection rate of 720.8 per 100,000 from 741.4 in the seven days to October 31.
The number of cases have increased in Blackburn with Darwen in the seven days to November 7.
The areas which recorded the largest week-on-week jumps include Scarborough, north-east Lincolnshire, and Melton.
Scarborough saw its rate go from 172.9 cases per 100,000 to 465.3 per 100,000 in seven days.
Before the updated statistics were published, Hull city council chief executive Matt Jukes tweeted today: “Hull’s Covid-19 infections are continuing to rise quickly.
“They are now the third highest in the country at 673 per 100,000, and are expected to be around 715 tomorrow (Thursday).
“It is absolutely vital we all follow the national lockdown guidance and remember – hands, face and space.”
Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire have been included in a pilot national rollout of 500,000 rapid lateral flow coronavirus tests.
It’s expected that the results will be delivered in an hour and won’t need to be processed in a laboratory.
This differs from the swab coronavirus tests where results are usually delivered between 24 and 36 hours.
Councils are likely to receive a first batch of 10,000 tests, followed by a weekly amount equivalent to 10 per cent of the population that live in the local authority.
Hull’s director of public health Julia Weldon told Hull Live: “The development and implementation of a localised approach to test and trace is something we and our partners in the wider Humber area have prioritised.
“With rates locally high and rapidly increasing, this additional testing capacity is critically important and supports us in being able to progress and enhance plans already in place.
“Our focus now will be to urgently put in place the detail of our local delivery, including how we will work with a wide range of local partners and how this work can be integrated with the existing national Test and Trace systems and existing local contact tracing, as well as our local strategy to control coronavirus rates.
“We must also agree how we can align this opportunity with the wide range of testing activity being undertaken in other areas and organisations, including care homes, universities, prisons and NHS frontline staff.”
This comes as coronavirus deaths in the UK have passed the grim milestone of 50,000 after 595 fatalities were recorded in the last 24 hours.
A devastating 50,365 lives have so far been claimed by the deadly bug – while 1,256,725 people have tested positive for the virus after 22,950 new cases were recorded.
There are 14,196 patients in hospital in the UK, with 1,219 on ventilators.
There are more Covid-19 hospital patients in hospital in the north-west and the north-east of England, than there were during the first wave of the pandemic.
In the north-east and Yorkshire, 2,999 patients were reported on November 9 – 432 above the first-wave peak of 2,567.
In the north west, 2,948 hospital coronavirus patients were confirmed on November 9 – 58 higher than the first-wave peak of 2,890, according to the Government’s coronavirus dashboard.
The latest R number is estimated to be at 1.1 to 1.3 with a daily infection growth rate of +2 per cent to +4 per cent.
In England, today 361 people who tested positive for Covid-19 died in hospital.
The patients were aged between 43 and 102 and all except 20 – aged between 58 and 95 – had underlying health issues.
There were another 79 deaths in the north-east of England and Yorkshire.
The north-west saw the majority of deaths with 114 fatalities, while another 62 fatalities were recorded in the Midlands.
There were 17 in London, 13 in the south-west, 11 in the south-east and four in the east of England.
New stats for England show infection rates in the north remain significantly higher, with just one southern city in the top 50 virus hotspots nationally.
