One more coronavirus death in Shropshire as UK toll passes 60,000

NHS England confirmed that the patient died in the care of Shrewsbury & Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH), bringing the number of deaths there to 244.

The total number of hospital deaths Shropshire now stands at 264, with 15 at Shropshire Community Health Trust and five at the Orthopaedic Hospital near Oswestry.

Meanwhile figures from the Office of National Statistics show there have been a total of 113 coronavirus deaths in Powys.

And the UK’s death toll from Covid-19 has now passed 60,000 – less than a month after it passed the 50,000 milestone.

The Government said on Thursday that a further 414 people had died with 28 days of testing positive for the virus.

The official figure for total deaths now stands at 60,113.

But the true figure could be significantly higher.

Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies for deaths where Covid-19 has been mentioned on the death certificate, coupled with additional data on deaths that have occurred in recent days, show there have now been 76,000 deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK.

These figures are based on deaths where coronavirus is mentioned anywhere on the death certificate while the Government’s data counts only those people who died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19.

Despite the grim milestone, there is a sliver of good news as both transmission rates and death rates appear to be falling.

The Government said that, as of 9am on Thursday, there had been a further 14,879 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK – a drop of 16.9% compared to the previous week.

It brings the total number of cases in the UK to 1,674,134.

The number of hospital admissions for coronavirus patients had fallen by 13.9%, while deaths had declined by 5.3% over the last seven days.

The death toll exceeded 50,000 on November 11 when a further 595 people were reported to have died within 28 days of testing positive for coronavirus.

At the time, there were 65,000 mortalities in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.