Preston and South Ribble’s weekend Covid cases, how infection rates have changed in the past week and vaccination programme making ‘brilliant progress’

A wintry rooftop scene in Preston over the weekend as the city saw snow and icy weather Pic: Tony Worrall

Preston and South Ribble’s confirmed coronavirus cases over the weekend have been updated and you can see how the infection rates have been changing.

Preston recorded 93 new Covid cases on Saturday (23 January) and a further 77 new cases on Sunday (24 January).

South Ribble’s new cases were 55 and 49 for the two weekend days.

Wyre was up by 39 cases and 40 cases, while Fylde saw 42 cases and 44 new cases.

Ribble Valley recorded 25 and 33, and in Chorley there were 71 new cases on Saturday and 40 cases on Sunday.

See the latest coronavirus cases and information near you

During the past week Preston and South Ribble have featured regularly in the fastest-rising infection rates in England.

The chart below shows South Ribble has now begun to see a slight fall in the infection rate but Preston remains on an upward trend. If you can’t see the chart, click here.

Lockdown lifting ‘a long way off’ says Health secretary

A record day on the Covid-19 vaccine rollout in terms of the number of first doses given is ‘brilliant progress’ say the Health secretary.

The Prime Minister has set a target of vaccinating 15 million people from the government’s top priority groups, including all over-70s, by mid-February.

A total of 491,970 people in the UK received their first vaccine dose on Saturday – meaning the total number of people to receive a first dose is more than 6.3million people.

However, Matt Hancock said: “There is early evidence that the lockdown is starting to bring cases down but we are a long, long, long way from being low enough because the case rate was incredibly high.”

See the coronavirus vaccine centres near you

Speaking to Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday show he said: “You can see the pressure on the NHS – you can see it every day.”

Mr Hancock was quizzed on the new South African Covid variant during the Andrew Marr Show on the BBC.

He said: “There is not what we call community transmission where you find a case that you can’t find the link back to travel. At the moment it is all linked to travel.”