THE leader of Redditch Borough Council has issued a warning to residents as Covid-19 continue to rise in the area.

Redditch has recorded a rolling infection rate of 337.8 in the seven days up to November 12, with 288 positive cases.

The area now has the highest Covid-19 infection rate in Worcestershire. A week earlier, Redditch's infection rate was 308.5 with 263 cases.

In a message on Twitter last night (Monday, November 16), council leader Matthew Dormer called on residents to redouble their efforts to prevent the spread of the virus.

He said: "I'm here to talk to you tonight about the infection rate across the town, which unfortunately has reached 344.

"Now that is alarmingly high, but what is even worse than that is the infection rate in the over 60s, which is 222.

"The over 60s is a category of more vulnerable people that are going to require extensive hospital care and treatment should they catch Covid.

"We need to protect this category of people. We need to protect our grans, our parents, our loved ones."

"We have to make sure that they're safe. That means fewer trips to the shops. It means fewer journeys out.

"We've got to wash our hands a lot more than we are doing. We've got to wear masks as often as we can. We've got to give each other a lot more space than we are doing.

"I know we can all do this. Lets just pull together."