Around 17million Britons are now living under tougher coronavirus restrictions than the rest of nation after health chiefs today confirmed extra measures were to be imposed on all residents living in Wigan, Stockport, Blackpool, Leeds and parts of Wales. London was also placed on the national lockdown watchlist because of a spike in cases and hospital admissions as government advisors warned the capital's R rate may now be as high as 1.5 - the same level seen in the North West, North East and the Midlands, which have all been stung by additional Covid-19 measures. Number 10's expert panel SAGE today also warned the reproductive rate of the virus may be as high as that for the UK overall. It's the advisory body's highest projection since it began tracking how quickly the disease was growing back in June and is slightly up on last week's estimate of 1.1 - 1.4. If the R rate - the number of people each infected patient passes the disease on to - remains above one, then the outbreak will continue to grow and cases will keep surging, running the risk that local Covid-19 outbreaks spiral out of control into regional and even national problems. Health chiefs today announced 6,874 more Covid-19 infections and 34 more deaths. The daily case toll is a record-high and takes the total number of cases to 423,237, although millions of Brits went undiagnosed during the first wave of the pandemic due the government's lacklustre testing regime. Government figures show the number of victims succumbing to the life-threatening infection now stands at 29 - 73 per cent higher than the average of 17 last Friday. But they are still a far-cry from the 1,000 being recorded each day during the darkest weeks of the crisis in March and April. But SAGE warned that the low numbers of deaths do not reflect how quickly the outbreak is growing.