TWO more people have died at St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust after contracting coronavirus.

The latest NHS data shows that one person died on Saturday, June 13 and one person on Sunday, June 14.

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

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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, meaning reported deaths may have occurred several days prior to them being reported.

There is also usually a lag over the weekend as the deaths work their way through the system, meaning Monday’s figure tends to be lower before rising again on Tuesday.

Today’s update means that 204 people have died at the trust, which runs Whiston, St Helens and Newton hospitals, after testing positive for COVID-19.

Across the country, a further 79 people have died. Patients were aged between 35 and 98 years old.

Eight patients, aged between 35 and 92, had no known underlying health conditions.

In addition, 11 people died where COVID-19 was mentioned on their death certificate but where there was no positive test result.

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Today’s figures bring the total number of confirmed reported deaths in hospitals in England to 28,061.

NHS England and NHS Improvement do not publish recovery figures.

St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has not published any data related to how many patients it is caring for or discharged who have contracted COVID-19.