Coronavirus latest: 568 average tests per day in Luton is 'a tremendous achievement'

But tough restrictions could remain in place in the borough if safety guidelines are ignored over Christmas, councillors were told.

Bedfordshire was placed in 'Very High Alert' Tier 3 of the government's lockdown rules yesterday (Thursday) with the decision to be reviewed on December 30.

The latest update was presented to the council's health and well-being board by Luton's director of public health Lucy Hubber.

"With the Christmas break, I'm very concerned that we'll see a significant increase in cases in Luton going on into January, pushing us even further into tier three and making the challenge much harder," she warned.

"It worries me enormously about people meeting up and spending that extended period of time with others.

"And we know in Luton, the transmission is within households for the vast majority of cases."

She referred to case rates locally as "very stable" during November and December, because the amount of contact people had outside the home had reduced.

Tier 3 has a limited influence on the public health measures, Ms Hubber explained.

"But it does bring a significant amount of difference for businesses, such as bars and restaurants, while there's the impact on the economy with people's ability to earn and care for their families.

"There's also a consequence potentially ... in driving people into each other's homes.

"When we last spoke, Luton had the highest case rates in the east of England.

"Our stability means we're seeing many other places with much higher figures than ours, particularly across Hertfordshire and Essex.

"We've maintained a really high testing rate in Luton. Our current testing rate is 568 tests per day, which is a tremendous achievement.

"It shows our population is listening. But we still have a quite high positivity rate which shows there's a lot of Covid in circulation."

The ground floor of Luton Central Library is due to become a test station from next week.

Describing Tier 3 guidance as "very clear", she said: "You mustn't mix with people in any indoor setting or in a private outdoor place, such as people's gardens.

"You can meet up as a group of six in public parks.

"Moving people out of a bar or restaurant could drive them into houses where they're likely to stay for a longer period of time, not keep to social distancing and potentially not have as good air circulation as in a commercial building."

Work is underway with schools to encourage children to be tested before the start of next term.

The government would like high prevalence areas to test children before term starts, particularly secondary school pupils.

"We're exploring that now," she added. "It's quite a challenge at a late point in the term."

Director of clinical transformation for the BLMK Clinical Commissioning Groups Dr Nina Pearson, who chaired the meeting, said: "You've kept numbers remarkably steady.

"We'd like them to be lower, but our situation could be an awful lot worse if we weren't all working together.

"The number of tests being taken by our population shows they really are doing whatever they can to limit the impact of this disease.

"No doubt there won't be much ease up for quite a while."