EVENING UPDATE: Bedford records over 200 coronavirus cases

Thursday's figures show Bedford recorded 231 new cases of coronavirus, with a total of 9,470 people now diagnosed with the virus, according to the latest figures from Public Health England.

Central Bedfordshire has 152 new Covid cases with a total of 11,263, while Luton recorded 195 with a new total of 13,727.

There were eight deaths recorded in Bedford (306), four deaths in Luton (329) and seven deaths in Central Bedfordshire (387).

In the East of England, as of January 10, 186,291 people had received the first dose of the vaccination for COVID-19 - 104,687 were over 80 and 81,604 were under 80 - 49,732 people had received the second dose of the vaccine - 42,841 were over 80 and 6,891 were under 80.

Meanwhile, Buckinghamshire now has 22,520 cases of Covid, Hertfordshire has 56,819 and Milton Keynes has 14,649 cases.

Nationally, the number of coronavirus cases has risen by 48,682 and now stands at 3,260,258. The number of deaths has risen by 1,248 to 86,015.

In the UK, as of January 13, 2,918,252 people in the UK had received the first dose of the vaccination for COVID-19, and 437,977 had received their second dose. ​

The new figures are recorded between 5pm the previous day to 5pm and unfortunately don't include the number of patients who have recovered from Covid-19.

The figures come from the Government website which is available for the public to view here.

Last Monday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced England would go into a third lockdown to help reduce the spread of the virus which is now being driven by a new mutation.