THERE have been another 350 Covid cases confirmed in Oxfordshire in a day as scientists find the new strain of the virus in the county.

It also comes as it was announced the county will be moving to Tier 4 restrictions from Boxing Day.

According to Public Health England, as of 9am Wednesday, these were the number of new Covid-19 cases in 24 hours:

  • Oxford - 88
  • Oxfordshire - 354
  • UK - 39,237

The total coronavirus cases since the pandemic started:

  • Oxford - 4,445
  • Oxfordshire -14,138
  • UK - 2,149,551

Cumulative case counts include patients who are currently unwell, have recovered and those that have died.

A further 744 people were reported to have died within 28 days of a positive Covid-19 test.

This takes the UK death toll to 69,051.

It comes as cases of the new faster-spreading coronavirus strain have been found in Oxfordshire by scientists.

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The Covid-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) consortium sampled cases around the UK and found eight cases in the county, as seen in an interactive map on its website.

It only shows samples that have been processed and sequenced, not the real number of total cases and is up to December 19.

Though the cases appear to be in Oxford, the geographic location is only approximate.

Jeffrey Barrett, lead Covid-19 statistical geneticist at COG-UK,at a scientific briefing on Tuesday, warned there was a lag in the sequence data being sampled, so the most recent data was from the first week of December when England came out of the second national lockdown.