Preston and South Ribble’s latest coronavirus cases have been confirmed.

The city recorded 87 new Covid-19 cases for Saturday (9 January).

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South Ribble saw 82 new cases for the same day.

Wyre recorded 73 new cases, Fylde with 42 and Ribble Valley was up by 59.

See the latest coronavirus cases near you

Read more: Preston and South Ribble GP surgeries now able to deliver Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine

Infection rates in Preston and South Ribble have been rising rapidly during the first week of January.

You can see the movement in the chart below as the city and the borough had seen cases sharply during the second lockdown, remain steady for most of December before escalating upwards in late December and are heading back to where they were in late October for Preston and South already well above where the rates were at the start of the second national lockdown in November. If you can’t see the chart, click here.

Both areas still have some of the lowest infection rates in Lancashire.

Third lockdown is ‘too lax’ say scientists

A member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) has said the current lockdown measures in England don’t go far enough.

Professor of health psychology at University College London, Susan Michie, has hit out at the third lockdown.

She said: “It is definitely too lax, because if you think about it and compare ourselves with March, what do we have now?

“We have the winter season and the virus survives longer in the cold, plus people spend more time indoors and we know aerosol transmission, which happens indoors, is a very big source of transmission for this virus.

“And secondly, we have this new variant which is 50-70% more infectious. You put those two things together, alongside the NHS being in crisis, we should have a stricter rather than less strict lockdown than we had back in March.”

She said the ‘wider definition of critial workers’ has led to many schools being 30-50 per cent full and there was ‘a lot of household contact’ taking place.

The government’s TV-campaign urging people to ‘act like they have the virus’ has gone live with the clip featuring chief medical officer professor Chris Whitty.

You can watch the clip below.

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