New Forest suffers its worst weekly coronavirus death toll

THE New Forest has suffered its worst weekly death toll of the coronavirus pandemic with 28 people reported dead in the latest update.

Across the district there were 14 fatalities in care homes and 13 in hospitals among the losses, according to the latest seven-day figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published on Tuesday.

It brings the number to have died locally this year to 67 – already more than a third of the 173 who perished with Covid-19 in the whole of 2020, and bringing the total since the start of the pandemic to 240.

The highest weekly figure in the New Forest last year was 25 deaths. Last week there were 22 people reported to have died with coronavirus in the district as the UK breached the 100,000 figure nationally.

In the BCP Council area, which includes Christchurch, there were 103 weekly deaths – up from 70 reported last Tuesday. Of the latest numbers, 45 people died in care homes and 54 in hospital.

It brings the total number of Covid-19 fatalities in the conurbation this year to 219 – compared with 355 for the whole of 2020.

The latest provisional figures from the ONS related to instances where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate up to 22nd January but were registered up to 30th January.

Despite the rising deaths, the case rate in the New Forest fell again this week, with the weekly number of people with a positive result dropping from 501 last Tuesday to 345 this week.

It means the district had an infection rate of 191.6 per 100,000 people – below the UK average on the same day of 261.9.

In the BCP Council area, however, the rate on Tuesday was higher than the national average with 396.1 cases per 100,000 people.

The weekly number of people with Covid-19 fell from 2,558 to 1,566 .

The infection figures are for the numbers of people with at least on lab-confirmed positive Covid-19 test result in the preceding seven days.