Ten more coronavirus deaths recorded across Northamptonshire

The number of coronavirus deaths in Northamptonshire rose by ten as pressure on the Government to rethink plans for a Christmas relaxation in restrictions grew.

Nine care home residents' deaths were linked to Covid-19 during the week up to Friday (December 11).

And one further death among coronavirus patients at Northampton General Hospital was today confirmed by NHS England.

The Office for National Statistics revealed the deaths in care homes in its weekly bulletin of information passed on by the Care Quality Commission.

Care homes in the county have now notified 30 deaths involving the virus to the Care Quality Commission during a 19-day period between November 23 and December 11.

The latest death confirmed by NHS England occurred on November 26 but is included in the national data for the first time today.

Northamptonshire's two main NHS trusts have now seen 870 coronavirus patients die while a further 189 have died in care homes since the start of the pandemic in March.

All those who died in hospitals had either tested positive for Covid-19 within the previous 28 days or had the virus mentioned on a death certificate.

More than 1,200 new positive tests have been recorded in Northamptonshire during the last week, according to Public Health England figures.

Northamptonshire's Public Health Director, Lucy Wightman, today insisted the Government would be "foolish" not to look again at allowing up to three households to mix during a five-day period from December 23.

She said: "Our NHS services are already completely overloaded, we're still seeing significant increases in cases and, sadly, deaths.

"There's not a lot of logic to the suggestion that we should be mixing over Christmas.

"We've seen what happens when we come out of lockdown and when people are able to do more things. That's why we have stuck with mantra locally that just because you can do something does not mean that you should."

And two leading medical journals, the British Medical Journal and Health Service Journal backed Mrs Wightman's call, saying the Government should "reverse its rash decision to allow household mixing and instead extend the tiers over the five-day Christmas period".

In a rare joint editorial, the journals warned the Government is "about to blunder into another major error that will cost many lives."