British prime minister Boris Johnson has said he hopes England would not need to go into a third lockdown after Christmas and follow Wales and Northern Ireland in imposing the measures to stop the growing spread of Covid-19.
"Obviously we're hoping very much that we'll be able to avoid anything like that," Johnson told reporters.
"But the reality is that the rates of infection have increased very much in the last few weeks."
Yesterday, the Northern Ireland Executive confirmed the region would reimpose lockdown measures from December 26th as case numbers there remain high and the health service comes under increasing pressure.
Yesterday, 656 cases of the virus were recorded in the North, with 12 additional Covid-related deaths.
The prevalence of the virus has also increased sharply in England and is now back above 500,000 infections in the latest weekly data, the according to the UK's Office for National Statistics (ONS), after dropping in the three previous weeks.
The ONS said an estimated 567,300 people had Covid-19 in the week to December 12th, the first full week after the lockdown in England ended, up from 481,500 the previous week.
"The percentage of people testing positive for the coronavirus in England has increased," the ONS said, adding there had been a sharp increase in London.
According to the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC), the UK's 14-day incidence rate is now 348.2 cases per 100,000, while the rate in the Republic is now 94.2 according to the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) yesterday.
