12 days with no new COVID-19 deaths

Sunderland’s hospital trust has gone a 12th day without recording any coronavirusrelated deaths.

Official NHS England figures released yesterday, show the number of COVID-19 fatalities within South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust remains at 325.

The last death to be recorded by the trust was on Sunday, June 21, with no public breakdown available for where the victims are from.

It comes as a change in the way testing figures are recorded shows a total of 1,761 people have tested positive for coronavirus in Sunderland – a rise of 373 on the previous count.

Thursday marked the first time that Public Health England has released numbers of lab-confirmed positive cases through testing in all settings.

These daily figures will now combine pillar one testing data (those from a laboratory setting) and pillar two tests (those carried out in the wider community).

Previously, only pillar one test figures were available at a local level with Sunderland having 1,388 positive cases under that measure.

According to the latest figures released by Public Health England on Thursday, there have been 15,057 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the North East

Cases by local authority area: County Durham: 3,301; Sunderland: 1,761; Northumberland: 1,565; Newcastle: 1,519; Gateshead: 1,271; Middlesbrough: 947 ; South Tyneside: 941; Stockton: 953; North Tyneside: 911; Redcar & Cleveland: 698; Darlington: 601; Hartlepool: 589.