UPDATE: Bedford records a fall in cases in last 24 hours

As of today (February 18), Bedford has recorded 31 new cases of coronavirus, with a total of 12,721 people now diagnosed with the virus, according to the latest figures from Public Health England.

There were five deaths in Central Bedfordshire (541), three deaths in Luton (468) and one death in Bedford (457).

Central Bedfordshire has 33 new Covid cases with a total of 14,768, while Luton recorded 74 with a new total of 18,343.

Meanwhile, Buckinghamshire now has 29,433 cases of Covid, Hertfordshire has 72,946 and Milton Keynes has 18,658 cases.

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.

Nationally, the number of coronavirus cases has risen by 12,057 and now stands at 4,083,242. The number of deaths has risen by 454 to 119,387.

As of February 17, in the UK, 16,423,082 people had received the first dose of the vaccination for COVID-19, and 573,724 had received their second dose.

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