More than two thirds of England's local authorities saw a spike in new Covid cases in the last seven days, according to new data.
The bleak picture shows coronavirus hotspots emerging in areas of Lancashire with one region recording a six-fold surge in cases.
It comes amid concern over whether lockdown restrictions can be lifted on June 21, due to the highly-transmissible Indian variant.
New research shows the strain has become dominant in many parts of the UK, accounting for more than 90 per cent of cases in Bolton and Blackburn.
Boris Johnson is weighing up whether to plough ahead with unlocking England, with cases up 28 per cent in a week and hospitalisations rising by 23 per cent week-on-week.
The latest infection figures, for the seven days to May 28, are based on the number of people who have tested positive for Covid-19 in either a lab-reported or rapid lateral flow test, by specimen date.
Of the 315 local areas in England, 211 (67%) have seen a rise in rates, 96 (30%) have seen a fall and eight are unchanged.
Blackburn with Darwen in Lancashire continues to have the highest rate, with 653 new cases in the seven days to May 28, the equivalent of 436.2 cases per 100,000 people.
This is up from 303.3 in the seven days to May 21.
Bolton in Greater Manchester has the second highest rate, down from 452.8 to 375.2, with 1,079 new cases.
Rossendale in Lancashire has the third highest, up from 113.3 to 312.0, with 223 new cases.
In Ribble Valley cases went up from 24.6 to 147.8, which is an increase of six times from the previous figure.
The rates are expressed as the number of new cases per 100,000 people.
Meanwhile, separate figures show 23,418 people have tested positive in the past seven days across the UK - 5,239 higher than the previous week.
A further 58 people have died from Covid in that time, while 870 people have been admitted to hospital.
But cases remain far lower than during the second peak, with more than 81,000 cases confirmed on one day alone, four days after Christmas.
