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

Today’s NHS figures show that one person died at the trust on Tuesday, June 2,  one person on June 3 and one person on June 4.

It is the first time any deaths for the trust, which runs Whiston, St Helens and Newton Hospitals, have been included in the figures since Saturday.

Today’s update brings the death toll ever-closer to 200, with 197 people dying at the trust since after testing positive for COVID-19 the start of the outbreak.

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.

Across the country, a further 123 people who tested positive for the COVID-19 have died.

Patients were aged between 38 and 105 years old. Only one of the 123 patients, aged 86, had no known underlying health condition.

In addition, 17 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 27,282.

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NHS England and NHS Improvement do not publish recovery figures.

Separate figures published by Public Health England show that 754 people had been confirmed as testing positive for COVID-19 by 9am Thursday morning (June 4) in St Helens, up from 753 the same time on Wednesday.

A week before, there were 752 cases.

It means cases have increased in St Helens by less than the rate across the UK of around one per cent.

Cumulative case counts include patients who are currently unwell, have recovered and those that have died.