Coronavirus cases continue to rise in Brighton and Hove but no new deaths reported

A record number of coronavirus infections were recorded across the country in the run-up to Christmas, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

And the virus continues to spread rapidly, with 567 new cases in Brighton and Hove in the past 24 hours, according to the government’s “coronavirus dashboard”.

There were, however, no new covid-19 deaths recorded in the latest 24-hour period in Brighton and Hove.

There has been one death in the past week. The previous week three people died within 28 days of a positive covid test result.

The number of covid patients in hospitals run by University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust was 113 on Tuesday (28 December).

The figure was up from 104 the day before (Monday 27 December) and 92 the week before, on Tuesday 21 December.

Of those, 19 required help breathing – known as mechanical ventilation – the same as the day before and down from 20 the week before, on Tuesday 21 December.

The trust runs a number of hospitals including the Royal Sussex County Hospital, in Brighton, where 27 covid patients were being treated on Thursday 23 December.

Five or fewer of those patients were in intensive care or high dependency beds.

The latest figures also showed that the number of people in Brighton and Hove to have received two doses of a covid-19 vaccine had now passed 200,000.

By Wednesday (29 December) 200,091 people had had both jabs – or 69 per cent of those aged 12 and over.

Across England, 82 per cent of people aged 12 and above had received a second dose of the jab.