One more patient has died from coronavirus across the three NHS trusts with hospitals in Cumbria.

The latest Covid-19 statistics released by NHS England show no more patients were reported to have died at North Cumbria Integrated Care Foundation Trust, which operates the Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle and West Cumberland Hospital in Whitehaven.

The Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust - which runs the Carleton Clinic in Carlisle - reported no new deaths.

At University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay Foundation Trust, which manages Furness General Hospital in Barrow and Lancaster Royal Infirmary, one patient was confirmed to have died. The patient is reported to have died on Monday.

Speaking before yesterday’s figures were released, Colin Cox, Cumbria’s director of public health, said: “We’ve actually had no hospital recorded deaths for about eight days now. It’s very positive to see that sort of thing coming through.

“Obviously there have still been some deaths in community settings, but these are levelling out. It’s slowing down and we’re getting back to the level of mortality and deaths across the whole county that looks much more like you would expect at this time of year.”

The confirmed deaths for both confirmed and suspected coronavirus related deaths in a community setting is now 192 according to Mr Cox.

Mr Cox added: “It’s starting to look like it’s getting better, but for me it’s really important we have the right sort of contact tracing systems in place before we ease lockdown all that much further. There’s a lot of work nationally and locally.

“We’ve already started to do some contact tracing at a local level to pilot those systems, so they’re ready to go when we need them.

“I think it’s important that we say the virus is still out there, it’s still circulating, so it’s really important that people do maintain the social distancing rules that we have been encouraging people to follow up on.

“The number of deaths is going down but that doesn’t mean people should think the whole virus has gone away because it hasn’t.”