A further three deaths recorded

THREE more people in Wales have died after testing positive for coronavirus, it was announced yesterday.

It follows the announcement on Saturday that two more people in Wales had died after testing positive for the virus.

It means the overall number of deaths with lab-confirmed Covid-19 in Wales since the outbreak began has reached 1,565.

Meanwhile PHW has said the number of confirmed positive cases of coronavirus in Wales had increased by 58 over the two days to bring the total to 17,315.

It should be noted that the reporting of new cases is always slightly lower on and after a weekend.

Of the 58 new cases 40 were in north Wales. Wrexham and Flintshire both recorded the most positive cases with 15 and 16 respectively followed by Denbighshire with six. RCT had five new cases whereas the Vale of Glamorgan and Carmarthenshire had three, while Conwy, and Cardiff had two. Powys, Pembrokeshire, Monmouthshire, Merthyr and Anglesey all had one new case.

No cases were recorded in other local authority areas.

While Wales has a testing capacity standing at more than 15,000 each day the total number of tests that took place on Saturday was 3,108 or just over 20% of total capacity.

First Minister Mark Drakeford said on Friday that the virus was at a “low ebb” in Wales.

He added that while there had been an increase in cases in the Wrexham area those could mostly be attributed to the Rowan Foods plant and Wrexham Maelor Hospital.

The package of lockdown easements, which he announced on Friday, will come in on a phased basis over the coming weeks.

He said that will also be applicable to Wrexham and no local lockdown will be introduced at this stage either.

There were no new deaths reported by Public Health Wales on 13 occasions last month (July 6, 10, 12, 13 and 16, 18, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 27 and 28).

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 all deaths where the virus was mentioned on a death certificate and not just cases identified in a lab, found that 2,491 people had died with coronavirus in Wales up to July 17.