More than two dozen Covid-19 deaths in just five days at West Sussex hospitals
But the latest figures show case numbers are falling across the county
A further 28 patients with coronavirus have died in hospitals in West Sussex in the space of just five days.
The patients were in the care of the Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust at the time of their deaths, which took place between last Friday and this Tuesday (January 15th-19th).
It brings the total number of deaths recorded at the trust since the start of the pandemic to 289.
It means there have been 57 deaths in the past week, up from 56 the previous week.
The trust runs St Richard's Hospital in Chichester, Worthing Hospital and Southlands Hospital in Shoreham.
In addition, a further three deaths were recorded at the Sussex Community NHS Trust, which runs community health services across West Sussex, Brighton and Hove and part of East Sussex.
A total of 38 people have died there within 28 days of receiving a positive test result.
The victims were among 8,066 deaths recorded across the South East.
Daily death counts are revised each day, with each case backdated to the actual date of death.
This means some of the deaths that were first recorded in the latest period may actually have taken place days earlier.
NHS England guidance states:
"Confirmation of Covid-19 diagnosis, death notification and reporting in central figures can take up to several days and the hospitals providing the data are under significant operational pressure."
In total, 910 deaths have been recorded in West Sussex where people had a positive coronavirus test result for Covid-19 and died within 28 days of the first positive test in all settings, including care homes, private homes and in hospices.
Mid Sussex has seen the most with 192 deaths, followed by Arun with 168, Horsham with 141, Chichester with 131, Crawley with 123, Worthing with 111 and Adur with 44.
Case numbers start to decrease in West Sussex
As of 9am on Wednesday morning, 32,051 people had tested positive for coronavirus in West Sussex since the start of the pandemic, including 4,473 in the last seven days, according to Public Health England data.
That's significantly lower than the more than 6,000 cases reported in the week before last.
The rate of infection is 3,709.7 per 100,000 people, below the national average for England (5,432.3) and the South East (4,765.6).
Here's how many people have tested positive for Covid-19 in West Sussex in the last week (figures in brackets show the rate per 100,000 people).
Arun - 958 (595.9)
Crawley - 829 (737.5)
Worthing - 677 (612.3)
Mid Sussex - 595 (394)
Horsham - 539 (374.8)
Chichester - 562 (464)
Adur - 313 (486.8)
Here's how many people have tested positive for Covid-19 in West Sussex since the start of the pandemic (figures in brackets show the rate per 100,000 people).
Crawley - 5,952 (5,294.9)
Arun - 5,917 (3,680.7)
Mid Sussex - 5,637 (3,732.6)
Horsham - 4,543 (3,159.4)
Worthing - 4,003 (3,620.3)
Chichester - 3,715 (3,067)
Adur - 2,284 (3,552)