Five more Shropshire coronavirus deaths confirmed as new figures show 26,000 dead in UK

The latest deaths were confirmed as the number of hospital deaths in England rose by 445 to 19,746.

Across the UK, new figures show more than 26,000 people have died in hospitals, care homes and the wider community after contracting Covid-19.

That includes 765 deaths reported in the 24 hours to 5pm on Tuesday and is the first time data on the number of deaths in care homes and the wider community has been included in the Government's daily updates.

The new method of reporting includes an additional 3,811 deaths since the start of the outbreak.

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Four of the Shropshire deaths happened at the Shrewsbury & Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH) and one was at Shropshire Community Health Trust.

It means 91 patients have now died at the county's major NHS trusts – 83 at SaTH, five at the community health trust and three at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital near Oswestry.

Yesterday it was confirmed that 36 people had also died and tested positive for Covid-19 in the county's care homes between April 10 and 24.

Seven patients have so far died in the care of Powys Teaching Local Health Board, while across Wales the death toll increased by 3 to 886 today.

There have been 166 positive tests for the virus in Powys, four up on the previous days.

As well as including patients who tested positive for the disease, the NHS statistics now also include patients who died in hospital and hadn't tested positive but for whom Covid-19 is documented as a direct or underlying cause of death on their death certificate.

In other news, the scale of the challenge facing the UK in tackling the spread of Covid-19 in care homes was acknowledged by ministers.

Dominic Raab – standing in for Boris Johnson following the birth of the Prime Minister’s son – said there would be no “sugar coating” of the issues and stressed the efforts being made to get a grip on the care homes crisis.

The Foreign Secretary, who faced questions in the Commons amid fears that the UK was on course to have the highest coronavirus death toll in Europe, said there was a “joint horror” across the House at the number of people killed in the outbreak.

Among those in the Commons today was Wrekin MP Mark Pritchard who called on the Government to open nurseries and garden centres in phase one of any "economic unlock".

Meanwhile, schools across England are set to reopen to children in a “phased manner” after the Covid-19 lockdown, the Education Secretary has said.

Gavin Williamson said the Government did not have a fixed date for reopening schools but ruled out the prospect of them opening over the summer holidays.