A spike in coronavirus cases in Northumberland could lead to NHS service restrictions and more deaths, residents have been warned.

The Northumberland County Council public question time event last Wednesday saw the county’s director of public health update residents with the latest Covid-19 statistics.

Northumberland has seen a significant rise in Covid cases during the second lockdown, the event heard, despite infections throughout the North East levelling off ahead of the new restrictions.

The local authority’s statistics show that the county’s case rate per 100,000 people increased from 261.03 on November 2, to 292.25 in the week starting November 9. However the infection rate decreased to 230.12 on the week beginning November 16.

Director of public health Liz Morgan noted that there have been some early signs of cases dropping off again and that the lockdown restrictions will take a couple of weeks to show their effects.

Asked about the reasons behind the recent increase, Ms Morgan said: “We’ve been really clear throughout this pandemic that case numbers can increase in an incredibly short period of time.

“Although we have had some outbreaks in a number of settings, and they have contributed to the increase a little bit, it’s possible that what we are seeing is that many of us are just not following those basic rules quite as well as we had been.”

Ms Morgan warned of a growing sense of pandemic fatigue among the public which might be affecting case numbers.

She said: “They are absolutely fed up with having restrictions imposed and losing control over their lives, so they are pushing at the boundaries.

“One of our biggest challenges is going to be motivating, re-energising and re-focusing our communities on reducing risk through those basic prevention measures.”