Fifth day this month with no new deaths

WALES has recorded no deaths from coronavirus for the second day in a row and the fifth time this month, it has been revealed.

Public Health Wales (PHW) confirmed yesterday that the death toll since the outbreak began remains at 1,586.

There were no new deaths reported by PHW on 13 occasions in July (July 6, 10, 12, 13, 16, 18, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 27 and 28) and four times previously this month on August 3, 9, 10 and 13.

However this doesn’t necessarily mean no-one died with the virus on those specific dates as it can take several days for a death to be logged officially.

So-called “true” death figures published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which include deaths in all places and when coronavirus is only suspected, found that 2,513 had died with coronavirus in Wales up to July 31. That was an increase of 10 on the previous week.

Meanwhile, PHW said on Friday that the number of lab-confirmed positive cases of coronavirus in Wales had increased by 18 to bring the total to 17,516.

Wrexham recorded the most positive cases with four, followed by Cardiff with three and Newport, Vale of Glamorgan and Powys with two.

Denbighshire, Flintshire, Swansea, Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion recorded one case each, while all other local authorities had no new cases.

Despite testing capacity standing at more than 15,000 each day in Wales, just 5,455 took place on Thursday, August 13.

However, the Welsh Government said this additional unused capacity would prove useful should Wales see any local spikes in cases.

The total number of tests done now stands at 466,255.

The number of people who have been tested in total in Wales is 280,412 with 262,896 testing negative.