A FURTHER patient has sadly died at Warrington Hospital in the past 24 hours after contracting coronavirus.

The sad news was confirmed by Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in its daily Covid-19 briefing this afternoon, Thursday.

It means that the trust’s virus death toll has now risen to 503.

As of this afternoon, 22 beds at the Lovely Lane site are occupied by patients that have tested positive for Covid in the past 14 days or less – a rise of one since yesterday

Of the 22, five patients remain in the hospital’s intensive care unit.

Since the start of the pandemic, 2,061 patients have been discharged from the hospital after beating coronavirus.

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Across Warrington, almost 900 new coronavirus cases were recorded in the space of a week, according to the latest statistics from Public Health England.

In the seven days before July 10, the most recent period for which data is available, a total of 883 new cases of Covid-19 were detected in the town.

This equates to 420.4 infections for every 100,000 residents – the 61st highest case rate in the country.

By comparison, in the week leading up to July 3 there were 756 transmissions – or 360 per 100,000.

Warrington was one of 287 local authority areas to experience a rise in figures between these two dates, while 27 saw a fall and one was unchanged.