UPDATE: Bedford has 87 new cases in 24 hours - but Luton has 100 more than us

As of today (December 18), Bedford has recorded 87 new cases of coronavirus, with a total of 4,275 people now diagnosed with the deadly virus, according to the latest figures from Public Health England.

There was one death in Central Bedfordshire (278), one death in Bedford (219) and one death in Luton (242).

The town - which had been in the medium tier before lockdown - has now been lumped in with the whole of the county and is about to enter the 'very high' Tier 3 with Luton currently recording over 3,400 more cases than Bedford.

Central Bedfordshire has 193 new Covid cases with a total of 5,204 - while Luton recorded 186 with a new total of 7,742.

Meanwhile, Buckinghamshire now has 10,425 cases of Covid, Hertfordshire has 24,307 and Milton Keynes has 5,992 cases.

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

Nationally, the number of coronavirus cases has risen by 28,507 and now stands at 1,977,167. The number of deaths has risen by 489 to 66,541.

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