The Liverpool City Region faces a potential move to Tier 4 coronavirus status.
Government ministers are meeting on Monday to discuss whether to bring the region in line with several other areas of the UK as infection rates spiral.
Numbers released between Christmas and New Year show an alarming increase in positive Covid-19 cases with Liverpool’s now at 435 per 100,000.
That number sees the city enduring a 113 per cent surge up to December 31 compared to the same period just a week earlier, on Christmas Eve.
Elsewhere in the combined authority, the picture is similarly bleak as Wirral’s infection rate has leapt 149% with 549 positive per 100k tests last week.
In the week leading up to the start of 2021, Halton saw a worrying 202% increase while Sefton and Knowsley’s numbers each grew by 155%.
All Merseyside boroughs except St Helens, where cases still grew by 81%, more than doubled in the period between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.
On Sunday, Liverpool City Council’s acting leader Wendy Simon and health lead Paul Brant backed calls for a nationwide lockdown to be imposed.
“It is clear that the country is now at a crossroads with Covid-19,” they said in a joint statement.
“The roll-out of the vaccine has given us all hope that this nightmare will soon be over, but the truth is that long-awaited return to normality is some months away.
“The stark reality is that today this virulent new strain of the virus is very much on the rise and we need to act now to prevent a crisis that will unleash even more pain and anguish.
“2020 may have gone but the coronavirus has not – and we need to take heed from the lessons from last year.
“That starts with clear decisive action by our Government that leaves no room for interpretation and gives the public the clarity and the confidence to act responsibly.
“We need the government to listen to those at the frontline, both in our hospitals and frontline services.
“We as a nation can cope with a lockdown. We have before and we can again.
“The quicker we move into one now, the more lives will be saved and the quicker a recovery will be.”