The number of Covid-19 cases in England rose by almost a quarter over Christmas, new figures show, further highlighting the impact of social mixing throughout the festive period.
According to the latest Test and Trace data, a total of 311,372 people tested positive for the virus between 24 and 30 December - a 24 per cent increased compared to the previous week, and the highest total since the programme was launched in May.
The Department of Health and Social Care said that the UK’s weekly caseload has been increasing for the past month, driven in part by the new, highly contagious variant of coronavirus first detected in Kent.
The latest rise comes despite a significant decrease in the number of tests that were carried out in the seven days up to 30 December. More than 1.8 million people were tested - a fall of 29 per cent from the previous week.
Although the government scrapped plans to relax Covid rules at Christmas for London and much of southeast England, in other regions of the country - in tiers one to three - social bubbles were allowed on 25 December.
Scientists have warned that the full impact of this household mixing has yet to be fully felt, with cases, hospitalisations and deaths expected to continue rising until the end of January.
The new Test and Trace data also showed that out of the 269,886 people transferred to the system in the week to 30 December, 84.9 per cent were reached and asked to provide details of recent close contacts.
This is down from 86.4 per cent in the previous week and is the lowest percentage since the week to 28 October.
Some 13.9 per cent of people transferred to Test and Trace in the week to 30 December were not reached while a further 1.3 per cent did not provide any communication details.
Test and Trace meanwhile successfully reached 92.3 per cent of the 493,573 people identified as close contacts of positive cases - a similar proportion to the week before.
Just 33.0 per cent of people who were tested for Covid-19 in England in the week at a regional site, local site or mobile testing unit - a so-called "in-person" test - received their result within 24 hours.
This is up from 16.9 per cent in the previous week, but is below the recent peak of 64.9 per cent in the week to 2 December.
Prime minister Boris Johnson had pledged that, by the end of June 2020, the results of all in-person tests would be back within 24 hours.
He told the House of Commons on June 3 that he would get "all tests turned around within 24 hours by the end of June, except for difficulties with postal tests or insuperable problems like that".
Separate data has shown that the UK has more new Covid-19 cases per capita than any other major country in the world.
The number of new daily coronavirus cases topped 60,000 for the first time this week, equivalent to more than 800 people in every million. This is nearly quadruple the per capita rate of Italy, Spain and France.
