UPDATE: Bedford records over 170 cases in 24 hours

As of today (January 11), Bedford has recorded 179 new cases of coronavirus, with a total of 8,898 people now diagnosed with the virus, according to the latest figures from Public Health England.

Central Bedfordshire has 208 new Covid cases with a total of 10,726, while Luton recorded 223 with a new total of 13,031.

There were two deaths in Bedford (275), one death in Luton (310) and deaths in Central Bedfordshire have been revised down by one (363).

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.

Meanwhile, Buckinghamshire now has 21,327 cases of Covid, Hertfordshire has 53,852 and Milton Keynes has 13,965 cases.

Nationally, the number of coronavirus cases has risen by 46,169 and now stands at 3,118,518. The number of deaths has risen by 529 to 81,960.

Owing to issues with Public Health Scotland Open Data API service, deaths by date of death for Scotland are missing, and the UK totals therefore exclude Scotland.

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.