Mapped: Covid infections in your neighbourhood as new variants rise

This is the latest information on local infection rates in your neighbourhood from Covid this winter. Concerns have been rising over the new Pirola and Eris strains of the virus which are sweeping through the UK and have been described as highly mutated and also very transmissible.

Our gadget which can be used below by entering your postcode will give the latest data from the Government on numbers of Covid infections detected in your area. This comes as the government has brought in increased mass testing to try to monitor the spread of the new variations.

The normal infection survey came to an end in March 2023, since then there have been no official estimates of levels of Covid-19 across the country. The new study will run from November 2023 to March 2024 and will involve as many as 32,000 lateral flow tests being carried out each week.

Up to 200,000 members of the public will be invited to take part – a smaller number than in the original survey, but the results will be broadly representative of the population as a whole. Reports have shown rising levels of infections in recent weeks. To use our gadget below enter your postcode to see how many more covid infections have been found in your neighbourhood.

The number of people in hospital who have tested positive for Covid-19 has risen since July, but appears to have stabilised in the last two weeks and remains well below levels reached last winter. The latest Covid-19 booster vaccine is currently being rolled out across the UK, with millions of people due to be offered the jab, including everyone aged 65 and over.

The rollout was brought forward as a precaution against the latest Omicron subvariant of Covid-19, BA.2.86, although experts say there is currently no evidence the new strain is more likely to make people seriously ill than other variants in circulation, while vaccination is likely to provide ongoing protection.

ONS deputy national statistician Emma Rourke said “robust data” is needed to help understand the virus and its effects during winter, adding: “The ONS is committed to building on the experience of standing up the gold standard infection survey.

“As well as working to provide UKHSA with regular rates of positivity, we will also be looking at analysis of symptoms, risk factors and the impact of respiratory infections, including long Covid, as part of this important surveillance.”

Meanwhile, former prime minister Boris Johnson was “dismissive of disaster” and labelled long Covid as “bollocks” in 2020, the UK Covid-19 Inquiry has heard. The Bereaved Families for Justice group said there was a “leadership void” in early days of the crisis and accused Mr Johnson of “cavalier” public messaging just weeks before the first lockdown.

The UK Covid-19 Inquiry also heard that key WhatsApp messages by the then-prime minister from January 31 to June 7 2020 are “unrecoverable”. The loss of these messages is a “remarkable and unfortunate coincidence” Peter Weatherby KC, for Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, told the inquiry.

Speaking on the first day of the second module, Mr Weatherby called for experts to examine the phone to see whether the messages could be retrieved “and whether they might have been deleted”. Mr Weatherby said that Mr Johnson “failed to take the emerging threat seriously” as he called on the inquiry to consider “whether vital time to form a contingency plan and to act was squandered” and that key preparations may not have taken place “because part of the Government was in denial, and others had a false view of its own preparedness”.

“The inquiry will have to consider whether the Government really was following the science, or whether Mr (then-chancellor Rishi) Sunak’s flagship policy hastened the next wave of infections.”