NO new coronavirus-related deaths have been recorded by St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust for the fourth day running.

Today’s figures show zero deaths were recorded by the trust, which runs Whiston, St Helens and Newton hospitals.

The last death to be recorded at the trust was on Saturday, when one death that occurred on May 28  was included in the daily figures.

Since the start of the outbreak, the trust has registered 194 coronavirus-related deaths.

The figures are updated every day by NHS England and NHS Improvement and include confirmed death cases reported at 5pm the previous day.

Cases are only included in the data when a positive COVID-19 test result is received, or where COVID-19 is documented as a direct or underlying cause of death on the death certificate.

This results in a lag between a given date of death and the daily death figures for that day as the deaths make their way through the system.

At the latest count,  a further 179 people who tested positive for COVID-19 have died in hospitals in England.

Patients were aged between 12 and 97 years old.  Four of the 179 patients, aged between 78 and 93, had no known underlying health condition.

In addition, 31 deaths were reported where there was no positive COVID-19 test result but where COVID-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.

Today’s update brings the total number of confirmed reported deaths in hospitals in England to 27,044.

The daily NHS figures do not include deaths outside hospital, such as those in care homes or in private homes.

NHS England and NHS Improvement do not publish recovery figures.

However, data published by Public Health England continue to indicate a slowdown in infections in St Helens.

As of 9am on Tuesday, 753 people had been confirmed as testing positive for COVID-19 in St Helens since the outbreak, revised down from 754 on Monday.

A week earlier, there were 752 cases reported.