18 councils across the UK haven't yet seen the COVID-19 death peak, says Office for National Statistics

29 May 2020, 08:04 | Updated: 29 May 2020, 08:18

This information is worrying to hear after the government begin relaxing rules at an alarming rate.

A whopping eighteen councils across Britain are yet to reach their coronavirus death peak, reveal official statistics.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) state that North Somerset, Preston, Doncaster and Carlisle are some of the areas that are going through their worst weeks at the moment.

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Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been announcing steps to move forward with the easing of lockdown measures, including the reopening of pubs and restaurants next month, but while the country's death rate as a whole is dropping, certain areas haven't even seen the worst of it.

After the launch of the Government's track and trace scheme, ministers have expressed concern that tighter restrictions may need to be reinstated at local levels, in places such as offices and schools, based on the local rate of infection.

And in the latest set of data results, the ONS have found that a whopping 18 areas have had their worst periods for deaths in weeks.

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The areas which are yet to see the COVID-19 peak are:

Ashford, Kent

Broadland, Norfolk

Carlisle, Cumbria

Doncaster, South Yorkshire

Eden, Cumbria

Fenland, Cambridgeshire

Herefordshire

Hinckley and Bosworth, Leicestershire

Kettering, Northamptonshire

North Somerset

Preston, Lancashire

Richmondshire, North Yorkshire

Rother, East Sussex

Selby, North Yorkshire

South Norfolk

Tonbridge and Malling, Kent

Wrexham, North Wales

Wyre, Lancashire

There's been a lot of concern in past weeks that the north-west of England took over from London as the main breeding ground for the virus, but the stats show that there is no pattern per region.

The areas are pretty spread out across the country, from North Wales to Yorkshire and even Somerset.

Weston Hospital in North Somerset was reported to have closed to new patients so they could deal with COVID-19.

Boris Johnson addressed this, and used Weston Hospital as a case study of how the track and trace system would benefit the UK.

He said: "The other day you saw there was an outbreak in Weston-super-Mare.

“We moved very quickly to close things down there to try to sort it out.

"That is the kind of whack-a-mole tactics that we are going to use as we keep driving the virus down and keep reducing the incidents.

"It is very important that we have a very sensitive test, track and trace operation in order to cope with local outbreaks."