Richmond has the third highest coronavirus infection rate in London after updated data shows what is thought to have been the borough's largest single week's increase in coronavirus cases so far.

In a video message Richmond Council leader Cllr Gareth Roberts said "it is absolutely vital we all follow the rules" to avoid spreading the virus and going into a local lockdown.

Unreported cases

The boom in cases comes due to a technical glitch which meant almost 16,000 cases went unreported nationwide last week.

This includes a huge number of unreported cases in Richmond.

The updated covid case tracker now shows that 150 residents of Richmond borough tested positive for coronavirus in the seven days from September 26 to October 2.

Under these latest figures, Richmond has the third highest infection rate of all London boroughs.

There are now 71.7 new cases being confirmed in Richmond per 100,000 people in the population – below only Hackney and the City of London at 74.3 and Redbridge at 81.6.

This is a massive increase from last week, when Richmond had an infection rate of 28.4 covid cases per 100,000.

Contact tracing

The fact thousands of cases went unreported means contact tracers are now scrambling to establish who they might have met over the past week.

The 15,841 people across the UK who tested positive were informed - but their close contacts were not – because the figures were not shared with NHS Test and Trace.

The error happened because the government was recording lab results on an Excel spreadsheet and it stopped updating after reaching its maximum size. Labour said the mistake was "shambolic".

Council leader's response

Cllr Roberts said: "Of course we want to ensure that we don't go into local lockdown. But what we have to be aware of is that the mood music coming out of London is that if one area of London goes into local lockdown, we all go into local lockdown. We need to avoid that if at all possible."

He added: "If you're one of those people who think that these rules don't apply to you, that you can go about your business as you have always done… now, you may not care about your own health, you may not care about your own job, but you are putting other people's health at risk, you are putting other people's jobs at risk.

"So please pack it in. Wear the mask, wash your hands and keep your social distance.

"It is absolutely vital that we all follow these rules because the increase of cases that we have seen over the last seven days is something that should be concerning all of us."

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