Government announce major local lockdown covering Greater Manchester, East Lancashire and parts of West Yorkshire.
Separate households are banned from meeting indoors from midnight tonight. This is significantly larger than Leicester's lockdown.
The BBC reported that the Health Secretary Matt Hancock said an "increasing rate of transmission" had been identified in those areas.
"The spread is largely due to households meeting and not abiding to social distancing," he said.
He also said the same restrictions will apply to the city of Leicester.
Millions of people in Greater Manchester, Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Hyndburn, Pendle, Rossendale, Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees will be affected by the tightening of restrictions.
BBC Newsnight correspondent Lewis Goodall said the Department of Health and Social Care had confirmed the restrictions will apply to all indoor settings - so it will mean that no two households should meet in places including pubs and restaurants,
the BBC wrote.
"We take this action with a heavy heart, but we can see increasing rates of Covid across Europe and are determined to do whatever is necessary to keep people safe," Mr Hancock.
It comes nearly four weeks after restrictions were eased and people were allowed to meet indoors.
On Thursday, a further 38 people in the UK died, bringing the total number of Covid-19 associated deaths to 45,999.
Market implications
There has been no material impact on cable, thus far, although the outlook for the pound is a lot bleaker on this news.
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