With London descending into Tier 4 last night (December 19) amid a surge in Covid-19 cases, here's the latest official figures across south London.

And the figures show why action has been taken, as cases have skyrocketed in many south London boroughs, and in Bexley have even reached a whopping 638.

Every borough in the region except from two have actually seen their infection rate more than double in the past week.

The data is based on Saturday's rolling seven-day rate of new Covid-19 cases for every local authority in England.

It shows the rate of infection, expressed as the number of cases in the last seven days per 100,000 people.

The figures are accurate up until December 15 as the most recent three days has been excluded, and are as follows.

Your Local Guardian:

Bexley once has the highest infection rate in south London after recording a meteoric rise from 293.6 cases per 100,000 last week, to 638.0 today.

The borough's infection rate has therefore more than doubled in the past week, and recorded a whopping 1,584 new cases.

South-east London neighbour Bromley has also seen a massive rise in cases, jumping 226.9 to 482.9 after 1605 cases were recorded.

In Kingston upon Thames, the Covid-19 rate was 448.4, up from 254.6, after 796 new cases were recorded, the highest in south west London.

Sutton has the next highest infection rate with 446.8 (922 new cases), massively up from 214.2 last week.

Greenwich has an infection rate of 445.2, up from 225.7, after the borough recorded 1,282 new cases.

In Croydon, 1708 new cases were reported, meaning its Covid-19 rate lept from 197.8 to 441.7 in a week.

Merton is close behind with an infection rate of 436.2, up from 238.2, after 901 cases were recorded.

Rounding off south east London, Lewisham recorded 1,250 new cases.

Your Local Guardian:

Recently one of the safer boroughs in London, this caused its rate to rise from 168.7 to 408.7.

In Wandsworth, the infection rate is 380.1 (1,253 cases), up from 155.9 last week, and Southwark recorded 369.2, up from 165.3.

Richmond upon Thames has the lowest infection rate in south London with 310.1, up from 115.6, which is still worrying high.

Nearby, Dartford followed its Kent neighbours with a whopping 604.8, up from 331.7.

Of the 315 local areas in England, 282 (89%) have seen a rise in case rates, 31 (11%) have seen a fall and two are unchanged.

Thurrock has the highest rate in the country after seeing the largest week-on-week jump in England, with 1,676 new cases recorded in the seven days to December 15 – the equivalent of 961.3 cases per 100,000 people.

This is up from 349.9 in the seven days to December 9.

Basildon in Essex has the second highest rate, up from 566.2 to 924.7, with 1,731 new cases.

Havering in London is in third place, where the rate has risen from 473.5 to 919.7, with 2,387 new cases.

The list has been calculated by the PA news agency, based on Public Health England data published on December 19 on the Government’s coronavirus dashboard.