OXFORD is on a collision course with local lockdown measures if the city's 'unsettling' surge in coronavirus does not start going down.

That was the stark warning from Oxfordshire's Director of Public Health, Ansaf Azhar, today as he reiterated it was 'undoubtedly' 18-29-year-olds driving the rise in cases.

The number of cases in Oxford in the week ending August 21 was 41, which is 26.9 cases per 100,000.

This is up from 28 the week before, which was already a rise on 16 to August 7.

It sees the city moving ever closer to figures in parts of the country that have been labelled by the government as 'areas of concern' or that require intervention.

Mr Azhar said: "We can see the number of people contracting Covid is increasing per 100,000 of the population on a day-by-day basis and it is very unsettling.

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"We were able to leave lockdown and stay out of it because we were suppressing the virus locally by our own actions."

He said people had been social distancing, sanitising and wearing masks but warned: "It feels to me like some people now believe the virus is gone for good. I can assure you that it hasn’t."

Oxford Mail:

Ansaf Azhar

Mr Azhar appealed to everyone in the city, particularly 18 to 29-year-olds, to remember the lessons of lockdown, adding: "Do we really want to end up with the kind of local control measures we have seen introduced in various parts of Lancashire, Yorkshire, Leicester and Aberdeen?

"At the minute it feels like we are moving in that direction. People need to be aware their behaviour is putting themselves and others at risk."

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He stressed young adults were 'absolutely not' guaranteed to only have the mildest symptoms, which even then could have longer-term consequence such as 'chronic fatigue, muscle weakness and memory loss'.

Mr Azhar added: "Equally you may well pass this on to older or more vulnerable people.

"How would you feel if you knew that someone was in hospital in a ventilator with their life under threat because you’d passed Covid-19 on to them?"

He said there there was still time to reverse the upward trend but added: "If we don’t bring the infection rate under control then measures will be introduced of the kind we’ve seen elsewhere in the country. It’s that simple."