POSITIVE Covid-19 case figures in Berkshire have now surpassed 16,000, according to the latest data.

Public Health England has recorded 266 lab-confirmed cases in the past 24 hours in areas including Reading, Bracknell, Wokingham, West Berkshire, Slough and Windsor and Maidenhead.

These figures, correct as Thursday, December 10, bring the county's lab-confirmed positive Covid-19 tests total to 16, 231, according to Public Health England.

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The local breakdown for the past 24 hours as follows:

  • Reading - 46 cases, 3,119 total
  • West Berkshire - 36 cases, 1,849 total
  • Bracknell - 31 cases, 1,732 total
  • Wokingham - 39 cases, 2,462 total
  • Slough - 85 cases, 4,437 total
  • Windsor & Maidenhead - 29 cases, 2,632 total

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

  • Reading - 164.4 per 100,000 people
  • West Berkshire - 58.7 per 100,000 people
  • Bracknell - 159.1 per 100,000 people
  • Wokingham - 142 per 100,000 people
  • Slough - 242.7 per 100,000 people
  • Windsor & Maidenhead - 97.1 per 100,000 people

There have now been 1,787,783 cases of Covid-19 across the UK – as of Thursday, December 10 at 4pm. This was an increase of 20,964 cases in the past 24 hours.

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In today's national coronavirus news:

Experts have warned that it may be unwise for elderly people given the Covid-19 vaccine to hug their loved ones at Christmas.

As the NHS vaccination programme continues across the UK, scientists suggested people may only have partial immunity after a single dose of the vaccine and should wait until they are fully protected with a second dose.

It comes after some of the people receiving the new Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine said they were looking forward to hugging their relatives.

Dr Simon Clarke, associate professor in cellular microbiology at the University of Reading, said: "The gift of the Pfizer vaccine rollout has not quite come in time for Christmas.

"It takes four weeks from the first jab of the Pfizer vaccine for someone to develop immunity to Covid-19.

"If someone is in receipt of the vaccine today, they will have to wait three weeks to get the second jab and then another week for immunity to develop."

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Dr Julian Tang, a clinical virologist from the University of Leicester, said: "Typically, vaccine responses may peak after two to four weeks - and these may take longer in the elderly due to 'immunosenescence', where the immune system in older people responds more slowly and less aggressively to foreign antigens.

"As people only started receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on December 8, and the second dose is due at 21 days after the first dose, no one will have had the second dose by Christmas.

"Recently released data from Pfizer suggests that the efficacy might only be 50-60% after the first dose - which is quite low.

"The trial data shows that the maximum protection of (over) 90% is only achieved after the second dose.

"So people still have to be careful despite having had one dose of the vaccine, as maybe only half of those might be protected - until the second dose has been given."