A FURTHER 661 positive Covid-19 cases have been reported in Berkshire in the past 24 hours.

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

These figures, correct as Wednesday, December 23, bring the county's lab-confirmed positive Covid-19 tests total to 22,123, according to Public Health England.

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The local breakdown for the past 24 hours as follows:

Bracknell - 97 cases, 2,600 total

Wokingham - 125 cases, 3,464 total

West Berkshire - 105 cases, 2,641 total

Slough - 135 cases, 5,797 total

Windsor and Maidenhead - 83 cases, 3,408 total

Reading - 116 cases, 4,213 total

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

Bracknell - 431.7

Wokingham - 324.9

West Berkshire - 292.8

Slough - 537

Windsor and Maidenhead - 301.1

Reading - 429.6

There have now been 2,149,551 cases of Covid-19 across the UK – as of Wednesday, December 23, at 4pm. This was an increase of 39,237 cases in the past 24 hours.

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In today's national coronavirus news:

Trade body UKHospitality has called on the Government to introduce urgent additional financial support for businesses forced to close due to the new tier restrictions spreading out across the country.

Chief executive Kate Nicholls said: “These urgent restrictive actions require equally urgent accompanying financial supports for businesses, many more of which have been flung closer to commercial failure.

“Many more pubs, restaurants, bars, cafes and hotels, having invested so much to make their venues safe, are now looking at indefinite and total loss of trading.

“They need an immediate message that, at the very least, the 5% VAT rate and business rates holiday will remain throughout next year, supported by an urgent package of survival grants, so that they can try to plan strategies to save their businesses.

“While the Government looks now to address the immediate problem, it must recognise that hospitality was largely shut when transmissions were rising, so were not the hotbeds of infection it has often been accused to have been.

“The incessant hammering of hospitality businesses must be followed up with an equally exaggerated raft of supports to rescue the sector when the virus is under better control, or many jobs and livelihoods will have been sacrificed for little effect.”