66 further coronavirus cases and one more death recorded in St Helens

A Coronavirus testing centre in Dalston, east London. There were a further 6,042 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK as of 9am on Saturday, taking the overall number to 429,277. A further 34 deaths were recorded.

The number of coronavirus cases in St Helens increased by 66 in the last 24 hours, official figures show – and one more death was recorded.

A total of 59,074 cases had been confirmed in St Helens when the UK coronavirus daily dashboard was updated on February 25 (Friday), up from 59,008 on Thursday.

The cumulativerate of infection in St Helens, which covers the whole pandemic, stands at 32,620 cases per 100,000 people, far higher than the England average of 28,292.

If one person tests positive for the virus more than 90 days after the first infection, two infection episodes will be recorded, according to the UK Health Security Agency.

Across the UK, the number of recorded cases increased by 31,601 over the period, to 18,804,765.

People with a positive lateral flow test no longer need to take a follow-up PCR test to confirm the result unless they have coronavirus symptoms.

UK case numbers now include LFT results for England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

There was also one more coronavirus death recorded in the latest 24-hour period in St Helens.

The dashboard shows 598 people had died in the area by February 25 (Friday) – up from 597 on Thursday.

It means there have been four deaths in the past week, which is an increase on none the previous week.

They were among 22,773 deaths recorded across the North West.

The figures include anyone who died within 28 days of a positive test result for Covid-19, and whose usual residence was in St Helens.

Daily death counts are revised each day, with each case backdated to the actual date of death.

The figures also show that nearly two-thirds of people in St Helens have received a booster dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.

The latest figures show 103,020 people had received a booster or third dose by February 24 (Thursday) – 62% of those aged 12 and over, based on the number of people on the National Immunisation Management Service database.

A total of 132,133 people (80%) had received two jabs by that date.

Across England, 66% of people aged 12 and above had received a booster.

Unlike at local level, the national rate was calculated using mid-2020 population estimates from the Office for National Statistics.