At the time of publishing, St Albans had 1,107 confirmed coronavirus cases between December 26 and January 1, up 303 compared with the previous week.

There are 746 cases per 100,000 people across the district, totalling 5,080 cases as of January 5, compared to 526 cases per 100,000 totalling 3,943 cases last week (as of December 29).

READ LAST WEEKS' STATS: COVID-19 cases continue to rise across the district

St Albans' coronavirus cases continue to soar significantly above England’s 'average area', which currently stands at 481 cases per 100,000 people.

England's 'average area' means the middle ranking council or local government district when ranked by cases per 100,000 people.

This comes after Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that England would enter its third national lockdown on Monday evening, after reports of a new, much more easily transmissible variant of COVID-19 contributing to the faster spread of the virus.

RELATED STORY: COVID-19: Boris Johnson announces schools to close tomorrow with new national lockdown

Yesterday's (January 5) government announcement declared the highest daily figure of new confirmed coronavirus cases since testing became more widely available, topping 60,000. This means that around one in 50 people in England are estimated to have the virus, according to the Office for National Statistics.

St Albans’ coronavirus death toll has increased to 171 registered to December 18.

READ MORE: St Albans gears up for life under third pandemic lockdown

The UK’s R-number, which represents the rate of transmission, remains between 1.1 and 1.3.

The R number represents the average number of people an infected person will pass the disease on to.

If R is below one, then the number of people contracting the disease will fall; if it is above one, the number will grow.