Five more Covid deaths in Wales, but infection rate still falling

A FURTHER five people have died with coronavirus in Wales according to the latest figures from Public Health Wales.

New figures published yesterday covering the last 24-hour period, show the total number of Covid-related deaths in Wales now stands at 6,242.

There were also 1,784 new positive cases recorded in the latest update, bringing the total number since the pandemic began to 461,109.

The latest seven-day infection rate across Wales based on the cases for every 100,000 people (for the seven days up to November 4) now stands at 527.7 – a further drop from the 536.9 reported on Monday.

The local authority with the highest infection rate in Wales is Vale of Glamorgan with 753.1 cases per 100,000 people over seven days, followed by Torfaen with 720.5 and Caerphilly with 659.9.

The test positivity rate across Wales is at 20.5%, which is slightly down on the 21.2%, reported on Monday.

The areas of the country recording the highest numbers of new Covid cases are Cardiff with 261, Caerphilly with 142, Vale of Glamorgan with 134, Swansea with 131, Carmarthenshire with 127 and Rhondda Cynon Taf with 110.

Meanwhile, Neath Port Talbot had 95 new cases, Newport had 86, Gwynedd had 81, Flintshire had 68, Powys and Torfaen had 60 each, Bridgend had 58 and Monmouthshire had 56. Elsewhere, Denbighshire and Wrexham both had 48 cases, Pembrokeshire had 44, Conwy had 35 and Blaenau Gwent had 28. The local authorities recording the fewest cases included Merthyr Tydfil with 19, Anglesey with 17 and Ceredigion with 11.

As of November 8, there were 802 people in general and acute hospital beds with coronavirus (confirmed, suspected, and recovering) – a slight fall on the 810 reported on November 5 – and 72 people in a ventilated intensive care bed, down from 75.

On Sunday PHW figures showed that 2,452,485 people have had one dose of the coronavirus vaccine and 2,248,786 have had both doses.

To date 540,272 people have received their Covid booster vaccine according to PHW including more than two-thirds of care home residents (75.4%), two-thirds of healthcare workers (67.6%), more than half of care home workers (58.3%) and over two-thirds of those over 80 years old (69%).