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A further 439 deaths in hospital from coronavirus have been recorded in the UK over 24 hours, public health chiefs have confirmed.
The increase brings the total to 5,373 – an increase of 9% since yesterday – and includes 403 patients in England, 27 in Wales and two in Scotland.
In England, the patients were between 35 and 106 years old.
Fifteen of the patients in England, aged 52 to 94, had no underlying health conditions, the NHS said. London saw the highest number of deaths, with 129 people dying in 24 hours, followed by the Midlands, which reported 75 deaths, and the combined north east and Yorkshire region, which reported 67 deaths.
The Department of Health said that, as of 9am on Monday, 208,837 people have been tested of which 51,608 tested positive.
So far, 252,958 tests have concluded, with 13,069 tests carried out on Sunday, excluding data from Northern Ireland.
The government tally has never completely matched the individual totals reported by the four nations.
Last week, the Office for National statistics revealed the virus had accounted for 1% of all deaths in England and Wales in the week ending March 20 – 103 cases in total. The up to date figure is likely to be substantially higher with the Covid-19 death rate now several times that number.
Those figures, unlike the daily data from the Department of Health and Social Care, included people dying outside of hospitals whose death certificates mentioned Covid-19, including in combination with other health conditions. The DHSC only records people dying in hospital after being diagnosed with coronavirus.
