SIX more people have died at St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust after testing positive for coronavirus.

The latest NHS figures have confirmed that three more people died at the trust – which runs Whiston, St Helens and Newton hospitals – on Sunday, April 12.

Three people have also confirmed to have died on Easter Monday.

The latest count shows that to date, nine deaths linked to coronavirus occurred at the trust on Easter Sunday, while six died on Good Friday.

The way the data is collated by NHS means Monday’s figure will likely rise, as it can take several days and sometimes weeks for coronavirus deaths to be confirmed.

The latest update means 71 people have died St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust after contracting COVID-19.

UK-wide, of those hospitalised in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus, 12,868 have died, as of 5pm on April 14.

However, these figures, which are released by the Department of Health and Social Care, do not include those people who died in the community, such as care homes or in their own homes.

Across England, a further 651 people who tested positive for the COVID-19 have died.

This brings the total number of confirmed reported deaths in hospitals in England to 11,656.

Patients were aged between 20 and 101 years old.

Out of the 651 patients, 20 of those – aged between 20 and 101 years old – had no known underlying health condition.

All of the confirmed deaths are patients who died in hospitals in England and had tested positive for COVID-19 at time of death.

The figures are updated by NHS England at 2pm each day and include confirmed cases reported at 5pm the previous day.

The data does not reveal how big a factor coronavirus was in a patient’s death.

NHS England does not currently release figures on how many patients have recovered after testing positive for COVID-19.

Public Health England does publish details on who has tested positive for COVID-19, however, this does not factor in people who have shown symptoms but have not actually been tested.

As of Wednesday, there were 399 confirmed cases of coronavirus in St Helens and 329 in Knowsley.

The infection rate is slightly higher in St Helens, per 100,000 population, although the rates for both areas are among the highest in England.