UPDATE: One death in Bedford as new cases start to creep up again

As of today (December 8), Bedford has 49 new cases of coronavirus, with a total of 3,562 people now diagnosed with the deadly virus, according to the latest figures from Public Health England.

There were no deaths in Central Bedfordshire (265), one death in Bedford (208) and one death in Luton (225).

On Wednesday, the town - which had been in the medium tier before lockdown - was lumped in with the whole of the county in the 'high' Tier 2 with Luton currently recording over 2,900 more cases than Bedford.

Central Bedfordshire has 78 new Covid cases with a total of 3,999 - while Luton recorded 60 with a new total of 6,522.

Meanwhile, Buckinghamshire now has 8,327 cases of Covid, Hertfordshire has 19,567 and Milton Keynes has 4,391 cases.

The new figures are recorded between 5pm the previous day to 5pm.

Nationally, the number of coronavirus cases has risen by 12,282 and now stands at 1,750,241. The number of deaths has risen by 616 to 62,033.

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