A FURTHER two patients have died at Warrington Hospital in the past 24 hours after contracting coronavirus.

The sad news was confirmed this afternoon, Tuesday, by Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in its latest Covid-19 update.

It means that as a result, the trust’s virus death toll to date has now risen to 623.

At present, 61 beds at the Lovely Lane site are occupied by patients that have tested positive for the Covid in the past 14 days or less.

Of this number, one is in the hospital’s intensive care unit.

The number of patients receiving Covid care in total has remained the same, with the number in the ICU falling by one.

However, an additional seven patients have been discharged from Warrington Hospital since yesterday after recovering from coronavirus.

This takes the trust’s virus discharge total since the start of the pandemic to 3,129.

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Across Warrington as a whole, the number of new Covid cases being recorded continues to fall, the latest official data shows.

During the week up to February 9, which is the most recent period for which figures are available, 1,078 new cases were detected in the town.

This takes into account lab-reported tests and positive rapid lateral flow tests that do not have a negative confirmatory lab-based PCR test within 72 hours.

It demonstrates an infection rate of 514.8 cases among every 100,000 residents, which is the 293rd highest rate in the UK at present.

Comparatively, the previous seven-day period up to February 1 saw 1,481 infections recorded at a rate of 707.3.