Covid-19 deaths at Princess Alexandra NHS Trust

The deaths occurred between January 10 – 17, the most up-to-date accurate data, bringing the trust total death toll to 416.

The week before 56 patients had died while in the care of the trust which runs Princess Alexandra Hospital, Essex Hospital and St Margaret’s Hospital.

As of January 12, 188 beds at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow were taken up by Covid patients.

A week earlier that number stood at 210 – the most at any point since the first peak in April of last year.

On Tuesday, January 20 the UK recorded a further 1,610 coronavirus deaths – the highest number reported on a single day since the outbreak began.

And experts have warned deaths will continue to rise for some days to come.

Officials believe there are signs the various lockdown measures in place around the country are having an effect as the vaccines are rolled out, with infection rates continuing to fall.

But the lag between people becoming infected and then being admitted to hospital means deaths will probably not start coming down until towards the end of the month.

Dr Michael Head, senior research fellow in global health at the University of Southampton, warned there could be further “record-breaking” days concerning the number of newly reported deaths.

“The lockdown is starting to show an effect on new cases per day,” he said.

“However, a proportion of the cases from early January will be admitted to hospital approximately this week, and deaths from those cases will likely peak around the end of this month.

“Therefore, we will alas see several more ‘record-breaking’ days in terms of newly-reported deaths.

“Over the coming weeks, the combination of the lockdown and the impact of the vaccine rollout will start to translate into a reduction of severe Covid-19 cases.”

Public Health England (PHE) said the figure – for those who had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 – brought the UK total to 91,470.