Health Secretary Matt Hancock calls for the public to "stick at lockdown restrictions" as coronavirus cases rise

The latest data published by the Government has revealed that as many as a fifth of local authority areas in England are witnessing a growing number of cases of Covid-19.

Speaking at a Downing Street press conference on Friday, Mr Hancock urged the public to “stick at” following the lockdown restrictions and other social distancing measures.

The Health Secretary said the number of cases in England is down to one in 145 people, but the rate of decline is “slowing”. He added the rate of hospital admissions and deaths are still “far too high”, and one in five local authorities has seen a rise in case rates in the past week.

“This stark picture shows that this isn’t over yet, the stay at home rules are still in place for a reason,” he said. “This is on all of us to keep this under control, this is still a deadly virus. We will get through this but we have to stick at it.”

England’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer also told people “don’t wreck this now” as he warned there were “some worrying signs that people are relaxing” in the coronavirus battle at “exactly the wrong time”.

Speaking at the press conference, Professor Jonathan Van-Tam alerted people who have already been vaccinated to the dangers of “taking their foot off the brake” and being tempted to break Covid-19 rules.

The warnings came only four days after Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced details on Monday of the Government’s road map to ease lockdown restrictions with a phased return to opening up society.

The Government said a further 345 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Friday, bringing the UK total to 122,415.

As of 9am on Friday, there had been a further 8,523 lab-confirmed Covid-19 cases in the UK. It brings the total to 4,163,085 cases.