A CORONAVIRUS patient has sadly died at the Countess of Chester Hospital Trust, latest figures show.

The NHS England daily report on Friday, April 9, said the patient died on Thursday, April 8.

A total of 615 Covid patients have died at the Countess Trust since the start of the pandemic, but the rate of those dying has dropped significantly in recent weeks as the number of Covid patient admissions has plummeted.

As of 8am on Tuesday, April 6, the Countess recorded there were nine Covid patients being treated.

At the peak of the pandemic, 290 patients were being treated at the hospital, resulting in staff and patients being redeployed.

Cheshire west's infection rate has now fallen to 18.9 in the seven days to April 4, from a high of 626.1 exactly three months prior.

That means in the seven days to April 4, a total of 59 Cheshire west people aged 0-59 had tested positive for coronavirus, as well as six Cheshire west people aged 60 and above.

The case numbers have been modified on April 9 to remove those who had tested positive on the lateral flow testing kits, but then subsequently tested negative on a PCR test.

That resulted in 56 'false positive' cases being removed from Cheshire west's records.

The total number of confirmed cases in the borough since the start of the pandemic is 21,595.

Nationally, latest vaccination figures show 60.6 per cent of adults in the UK have now received their first Covid vaccine, with 12.4 per cent having received both doses.