Areas in the North East may have restrictions applied today as cases rise

Nearly two million residents in north-east England may face COVID-19 restrictions as cases increase, an expected announcement later today will reveal.

Areas such as Gateshead, Newcastle, Northumberland, County Durham, North and South Tyneside and Sunderland are in the process of getting the measures like closing pubs at 10 pm, limits on household mixing or only essential travel permitted on public transport, getting implemented.

The new changes will apply .

Cases in north-east England have been reporting big rises for some time. In the week to the 30th of August Sunderland reported 24 new cases, in the space of two weeks this increased to over 200 new cases.

Another example, South Tyneside had 70 cases in the last week of August, which jumped to 141 cases after another two weeks.

Despite this, the north-west town Bolton had the highest rate in England on Wednesday with 204.1 new infections per 100,000 people in the week to the 13th of September.

Council members of the affected north-east areas have been told that the measures, which are thought to be temporary, are mainly restricting social gatherings.

Nick Forbes, the Newcastle City council leader, said: "The evidence we've found from local testing is that it's spreading in three main areas: in pubs, in people's homes and in grassroots sports,"

Local councils have also asked the government for additional funding to help these areas to enforce the new measures as well as additional funding for local testing facilities.

Mr Forbes added: "All of the testing facilities in our region are more or less at full capacity every day - we're hearing stories of people being sent 200 miles to get a test and that's not acceptable."

The new measures come as PM Boris Johnson told the Sun: "The only way to make sure the country is able to enjoy Christmas is to be tough now."

He also said that Downing St promised a £546m plan to help with the protection of care homes from the virus during this coming winter.

The new measures are part of the government's effort to prevent another national lockdown which the PM said in a committee yesterday would be "disastrous" for the UK.

COVID-19 cases in the UK have risen to a total of 378,219, according to official government figures.