THIS interactive map reveals the areas in the UK that have the highest number of Covid cases.
Infections have fallen in recent weeks, but some towns and cities are bearing the brunt of the bug.
Data from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) shows that there are 22 local authorities that have infections between 200 and 500 cases.
This is an improvement on last week’s figures, when there were still four areas with cases in the upper tier of infections of 500 to 1,000.
Areas of the map shaded in the darkest colours are the worst hit by infection.
In this weeks data, these are in a lighter purple shade, with the areas with the least infections in yellow or light orange.
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The worst hit areas are:
Government data, updated weekly on a Thursday evening, also shows that hospitalisations have started to fall.
The number of patients being admitted to hospital with the illness had started to climb in mid September, reaching over 1,000 admissions a day at the start of October.
However, these have now fallen to around 600 each day.
The Omicron strain is the variant currently in circulation across the UK, which has proven to be milder than others that came before it.
A mammoth vaccine rollout and prior infection have meant that many Brits have some protection against severe illness.
The detection of hotspots across the UK comes as millions of Brits were warned that they could be at risk of a silent killer due to Covid delays.
Medics say that many are unaware they have potentially deadly conditions such as high blood pressure – that up your risk of a stroke.
Research from the British Heart Foundation (BHF) states that around 30,000 extra heart disease deaths have occured since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
Now doctors have warned that further lives will be lost if NHS waiting lists continue to grow.
Figures from the NHS show that ambulances took an average of 47 minutes and 59 seconds in September to respond to emergency calls.
However, 2.8million Brits were tested for cancer this year, which is up by a fifth from 2.32million in 2018/19.
Despite promising results in some areas of the health service, BHF said patients are still dying needlessly due to difficulties in accessing care and waiting lists.
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The experts described a “vast backlog of time-sensitive cardiac care”, which has grown by almost 50 per cent since the pandemic began to nearly 350,000 people.
It also pointed to a large number of “missing” heart patients who may have conditions such as high blood pressure that put them at higher risk of heart attack and stroke.
