424 further coronavirus cases and five more deaths recorded in Wirral

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 Wirral increased by 424 in the last 24 hours, official figures show – and five more deaths were recorded.

A total of 80,695 people had been confirmed as testing positive for Covid-19 in Wirral when the UK coronavirus daily dashboard was updated on January 18 (Tuesday), up from 80,271 on Monday.

The rate of infection in Wirral now stands at 24,880 cases per 100,000 people, higher than the England average of 23,103.

Across the UK, the number of recorded cases increased by 93,890 over the period, to 15,399,300.

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 currently only include LFT results for England and Northern Ireland, with lateral flow testing data for Scotland due to be added in the coming weeks.

There were also five more coronavirus deaths recorded in the latest 24-hour period in Wirral.

The dashboard shows 944 people had died in the area by January 18 (Tuesday) – up from 939 on Monday.

It means there have been 10 deaths in the past week, which is a decrease on 12 the previous week.

They were among 21,496 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 Wirral.

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

The figures also show that more than three-quarters of people in Wirral have received two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine.

The latest figures show 230,481 people had received both jabs by January 17 (Monday) – 78% of those aged 12 and over, based on the number of people on the National Immunisation Management Service database.

Across England, 83% of people aged 12 and above had received a second dose of the jab.

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