Staggering 446 new cases of Covid in Milton Keynes today

The number of city cases since the start of the pandemic now stands at 9,441.

Some experts say the surge could be due to lack of testing available over Christmas, but others blame the number of people who broke the rules and socialised over the festive season.

Happily, despite a major increase in the number of Covid patients being admitted to MK hospital, there have been no new deaths. The MK toll still stands at 245 deaths.

Nationally there was also a record surge in new cases, with 53,135 people positive over the past 24 hours. Sadly, there have been 414 Covid-linked deaths throughout the UK.

Over the seven days up until Christmas Eve, there were 2,342 new cases in Mk, bringing the case rate up to 869.2 per 100,000 of the population.

Today's figures reconfirm MK's status as one of the worst current Covid hotspots in England. See Citizen story here .

The government is due tomorrow (Wednesday) to review its Tier 4 decision for Milton Keynes and other parts of the country. Currently there is speculation that MK could see even tighter restrictions imposed as a result of the rising statistics. See Citizen story here .