Leeds waits for vaccine as Covid rates go sky-high in student areas

Heading back to their student halls with a bottle of wine, 19-year-olds Roz Monaghan and Mackenzie Bradley-Wilkinson are feeling tense. The pair live in the Hyde Park area of Leeds, where Covid-19 rates are the highest in the country, more than 10 times the average. A combination of a majority-unvaccinated population, a return to face-to-face teaching, good weather and the end of exams has sent Covid rates in Leeds’s student area sky-high. While the UK average is 105 cases per 100,000 people, the case rate in the Hyde Park ward is a huge 1,547 per 100,000 people and it is rising rapidly. In neighbouring Hyde Park Corner and Woodhouse Cliff, there are 1,044 cases per 100,000 people.