Leicester Mercury

673 new cases confirmed on first day of lockdown

- Mailbox@leicesterm­ercury.co.uk

MORE than 600 new coronaviru­s cases were recorded across Leicester and Leicesters­hire on the first day of the national lockdown.

Government figures, updated yesterday afternoon, show 274 cases were reported in the city and 359 in the county.

The number is high but is a dip from the record total of 847 registered on Monday.

Ouside Leicester, Charnwood registered the most new infections with 102 positive tests.

Leicesters­hire County Council’s director of public health told the Mercury the tougher national restrictio­ns would start to have an impact on the number but things were likely to look worse in the short term before they got better.

Today’s confirmed cases by district :

Leicester: 274

Blaby: 60 Charnwood: 102 Harborough: 43 Hinckley and Bosworth: 43 Melton: 24

North West Leicesters­hire: 55

Oadby and Wigston: 32

The new cases, updated yesterday at 4.22pm, mean the total number of cases across the city and county since the start of the pandemic area by area are:

Leicester: 23,479

Blaby: 4,463

Charnwood: 8,227

Harborough: 3,191

Hinckley and Bosworth: 3,646 Melton: 1,739

North West Leicesters­hire: 3,419 Oadby and Wigston: 3,482 England: 2,393,923

The latest figures come as schools and colleges were closed until at least mid-February and Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered people to stay at home in order to try to break the chain of transmissi­on of the new strain of Covid-19 and reduce the pressure on the NHS.

The latest seven-day infection rates, area by area, and total cases, are:

Leicester: 433.3 cases per 100,000 people (1,535 cases in the last seven days)

Blaby: 349.7 cases per 100,000 people (355)

Charnwood: 273.9 cases per 100,000 people (509)

Harborough: 404 cases per 100,000 people (379)

Hinckley and Bosworth: 275.8 cases per 100,000 people (312)

Melton: 291 cases per 100,000 people (149)

North West Leicesters­hire: 375.4 cases per 100,000 people (326) Oadby and Wigston: 496.6 cases per 100,000 people (283)

England: 546.9 cases per 100,000 people (307,806)

The Mercury uses the gov.uk daily dashboard to report local cases.

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 ?? CHRIS GORDON ?? POSITIVE TESTS: The sock statue in Loughborou­gh. Charnwood recorded the most new infections yesterday, after the city
CHRIS GORDON POSITIVE TESTS: The sock statue in Loughborou­gh. Charnwood recorded the most new infections yesterday, after the city

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