Britain’s coronavirus cases jump 40% in a week with 19,724 more infections

Britain’s daily Covid-19 cases have jumped 40 per cent in a week as health officials today announced 19,724 more infections and 137 new deaths. 

Department of Health figures show 14,162 cases and 70 deaths were recorded last Wednesday, as well as 17,234 cases and a four-month high of 143 fatalities yesterday. 

For comparison, more than 100,000 Britons were getting infected and at least 1,000 were dying every day during the darkest period of the first wave in March and April. 

The figures come as Boris Johnson today sounded defiance on his local ‘Tiers’ lockdown plan, despite warnings from scientists that it is the ‘worst of all worlds’. Rumours were swirling today that the Prime Minister is seriously considering a ‘circuit breaker’.

But in brutal clashes at PMQs, Mr Johnson dismissed calls from Sir Keir Starmer and SAGE for a ‘miserable’ national ‘circuit breaker’. He insisted that his job was to balance the economic and wider interests of the country with the science.

Northern leaders today backed Sir Keir Starmer’s calls for a nationwide ‘circuit breaker’ lockdown and refused to accept the Prime Minister’s plans for tier three restrictions.

The Greater Manchester mayor and its local council leaders said they were resisting the ‘fundamentally flawed’ highest level of local restrictions without more financial help, adding to calls also made by the Labour leader for new national measures. 

And Welsh ministers faced fury today after unveiling an extraordinary bid to ban people from coronavirus hotspots entering the country. First Minister Mark Drakeford was accused of being obsessed with ‘banning the English’ after he announced the move saying people were ‘anxious and fearful’ about importing infection.

In other coronavirus developments today: 

• Northern Ireland will close its pubs for a month from Friday and shut schools for a fortnight from next week under a circuit-breaker lockdown, First Minister Arlene Foster announced;
• The leader of Lancashire County Council has said it is ‘inevitable’ the area will be upgraded to Tier Three coronavirus restrictions soon;
• Health officials in Liverpool expect to see the number of Covid-19 patients in the city’s hospitals surpass the levels of the first peak in the next seven to 10 days;
• Nicola Sturgeon has urged Scots not to travel to Blackpool saying 180 recent infections north of the border had been linked to the town.