Fifteen towns and cities in England have recorded a small week-on-week rise in Covid cases, latest data shows. Just over a month since Boris Johnson plunged the country into a third national lockdown, the number of new infections has fallen dramatically.
But some areas have seen cases creep up slightly in the week to Monday, Public Health England figures reveal. One of them, Corby in Northamptonshire, now has the highest infection rate in the country, with a rate of 512.3 cases per 100,000, up from 473.6.
Of the 315 local areas in England, 15 (5 per cent) have seen a rise in case rates and 300 (95 per cent) have seen a fall. Scientists now reckon that the virus is retreating by up to five per cent a day and the R number - which measures the