UK seeing steepest rise in COVID infections in whole of Europe

The UK is currently recording the steepest increase in COVID cases in Europe.

Cases have risen by 56.5% in the seven days to 7 June compared to the previous week, according to data complied by Oxford University's Our World in Data database.

It comes as the more transmissible Indian variant, which has been renamed the "Delta" variant by the World Health Organization, continues to spread across the country.

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COVID cases are also rising in Portugal, which has seen a rise of 8.6% week on week.

Meanwhile, Russia has seen a weekly increase of 3.2% as of 7 June compared to the previous week.

Infections are falling in every other European country.

While the UK's rise is cases in the steepest, overall case numbers are higher elsewhere.

These are the 10 European countries with the highest seven-day rolling average case rate per million people.

Denmark: 141.816

Sweden: 135.639

Latvia: 127.921

Netherlands: 126.075

Slovenia: 117.505

Belgium: 114.265

Lithuania: 113.35

Greece: 107.728

France: 98.841

Andorra: 92.446

The UK’s rate stands at 74.006 per million – but infection numbers are rising quickly.

A further 6,048 lab-confirmed cases were confirmed in the UK on Tuesday, and 13 more people were confirmed to have died.

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The number of UK hospital admissions has yet to see a corresponding increase as the vaccination programme continues to progress rapidly.

But the surge has still cast uncertainty over whether remaining lockdown restrictions can be lifted in line with the government’s roadmap on 21 June.

The state of infection numbers and variants of concern are two of the government’s “four tests” when considering each stage of unlocking.

Downing Street has said there is “nothing in the data” so far to suggest a delay would be needed.

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But an increasing number of senior advisers are believed to be pushing for a delay of up to a couple of weeks to fully understand the impact of the Indian variant.

The Times reported on Tuesday that 21 June's lockdown easing could be delayed by between two weeks and a month.

Boris Johnson is due to make a formal announcement on Monday next week.

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