Coronavirus: More UK cities including parts of London being closely monitored for fresh spikes

Officials not expecting more Leicester-style city-wide lockdowns in coming days

Cities and towns including Bradford, Barnsley and Oldham as well as parts of London are being monitored closely amid fears that Leicester-style flare-ups of coronavirus could emerge elsewhere in the country.

But officials believe that the outbreak on Leicester remains on a different scale from other sites where mini-spikes have emerged in recent weeks, and no further city-wide lockdowns are expected within the coming days, official sources told The Independent.

All eyes are on the virus’s response to the ‘super Saturday’ relaxation of lockdown restrictions on 4 July, when pubs, restaurants and hairdressers will be among thousands of businesses reopening after more than 100 days.

Prime minister Boris Johnson has said he will not hesitate to reimpose localised controls should testing reveal new pockets of infection following the weekend.

The decision to exempt Leicester from Saturday’s rollback of lockdown was taken after infection rates reached 135 per 100,000 population in the East Midlands city, with signs that the virus had broken out of individual workplaces and institutions and was spreading within households.

The city’s infection rate remains more than three times the next biggest hotspot, Bradford, at around 40 per 100,000. Rates in the rest of the top 10 currently range between the high 20s and 40.

At this level, public health officials would expect to respond with super-local clampdowns, focusing on individual workplaces or health centres to contain the virus before it has a chance to spread freely in the community again.

This approach has already been used in the north London suburb of Enfield, Kirkless in West Yorkshire and the island of Anglesey in north Wales, said a source.

Some 36 areas of England have been identified as experiencing increases in coronavirus infections over the past two weeks, according to Public Health England data.

But many of these have reported only small rises of one or two cases from a very low baseline of a handful or even zero in the previous week, meaning that they are not been treated as causes for particular concern at this stage.

One source said that localised data on infection rates was being monitored “constantly” to watch for flare-ups and plans will be amended as the situation develops. But the source said that as things stand no active preparations are understood to be being made for Leicester-style city-wide lockdowns in the coming days.