Coronavirus deaths in Wales fall below 100 a week for the first time since March

The figures for coronavirus deaths, released every week by the Office for National Statistics, have made grim reading for more than two months.

The number of Welsh lives lost each week went up from 21 at the end of March to 134 at the start of April and kept climbing to over 400 a week.

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The numbers have declined more slowly and hardly fell at all between the end of May and the start of June, not dropping below 100.

Ministers and health officials always point out that every single death is a tragedy for the friends and family of a loved one but they will be relieved to see a significant shift in the latest figures.

In particular, the prospect of a catastrophic spread of coronavirus appears to have been averted in care homes, where the weekly lives lost are now in single figures. Here's where the latest deaths occurred:

• Hospitals 43 (down from 68 the week before).

• Care Homes 9 (down from 28 the week before).

• Elsewhere 5 (up from 4 the week before)

The ONS figures include all deaths where Covid-19 was given as a cause on the death certificate. The total for Wales since the pandemic began is now 2,370. That's considerably higher than the 1,478 recorded so far by Public Health Wales, which only includes cases where patients had tested positive for coronavirus before they died.