Coronavirus in Berkshire round-up: Wednesday, March 24

[Cookham v Coronavirus]

More than 55,000 people have tested positive for coronavirus in Berkshire.

Public Health England has recorded 62 new lab-confirmed cases in the past 24 hours, in areas including Reading, Bracknell, Wokingham, West Berkshire, Slough and Windsor and Maidenhead.

These figures, correct as of Wednesday, March 24, at 5pm, bring the latest total for the county to 55,232 cases.

The local breakdown for the past 24 hours as follows:

Reading - 9 cases, 10,710 total

Bracknell Forest - 6 cases, 6,948 total

Wokingham - 2 cases, 8,068 total

West Berkshire - 6 cases, 6,248 total

Slough - 24 cases, 15,006 total

Windsor and Maidenhead - 15 cases, 8,252 total

There have now been 4,312,908 people across the UK who have tested positive for Covid-19 - a daily increase of 5,605.

The latest seven-day rate per 100,000 people locally are as follows:

Reading - 45.7

Bracknell Forest - 27.7

Wokingham - 40.9

West Berkshire - 27.1

Windsor and Maidenhead - 50.2

Slough - 68.9

A total of 28,653,523 first does Covid-19 vaccinations have now been administered in the UK, according to the latest figures. The number of people who have had their second dose has now reached 2,523,839.

In today's national Covid news:

Declaring whether foreign holidays can take place this summer will depend on the coronavirus situation in the UK and elsewhere, Boris Johnson has said.

Commons Transport Committee chairman Huw Merriman asked whether the taskforce report into international travel would declare the criteria for travel restrictions being lifted or if it would instead list which countries were confirmed as safe to journey to.

The Prime Minister said: “I think, with great respect, you’re probably going to have to wait until April 5 to see the details.

“The hope is that we can get people moving again by May 17, by step three, in the way that I’ve set out in the road map.

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“We’ll just have to see where we get to and where other countries get to and what the data is telling us.”

Mr Johnson, asked about providing further support to transport sectors badly-hit by the pandemic, added: “The best thing for all those sectors is to get us all moving again and that depends on the rollout of the vaccine and defeating the virus.”