The number of coronavirus deaths of people living in Watford, Hertsmere, and Three Rivers are down to the lowest levels in two months.

Figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) yesterday shows there were eight Covid-19 deaths across the three boroughs in the latest week of data.

ONS data shows just one coronavirus death of someone living in Watford between May 9 and May 15, taking the official Covid-19 death toll in Watford to 102.

The Watford data takes into account deaths of people living in the town - it does not include deaths at Watford General Hospital unless they were a Watford resident.

There were four coronavirus deaths recorded in the same period of time in Hertsmere, and three in Three Rivers.

St Albans and Dacorum each recorded four Covid-19 deaths during the time period.

In the previous week, Hertsmere recorded 12 Covid-19 deaths with seven in Watford and five in Three Rivers.

The Covid-19 death toll in Hertsmere is currently 168 - the highest in Hertfordshire - and there have been 80 deaths in Three Rivers.

The total number of deaths which took place between May 9 and May 15 in each of three boroughs are also down.

Sixteen people living in Hertsmere died during this period compared to 25 a week earlier.

In Watford, it is 13, down from 16, and in Three Rivers, it is ten, down from 17.

These numbers are reassuringly some way off the numbers published in April where for example 80 people living in Hertsmere died in a single week from all causes - with 42 put down as coronavirus.

The coronavirus pandemic peaked in Hertfordshire during mid-April.

National

The latest ONS data shows the number of deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK has passed 47,000

Tuesday's ONS figures show that 42,173 deaths involving Covid-19 had occurred in England and Wales up to May 15, and had been registered up to May 23.

There have been nearly 54,000 excess deaths in England and Wales since the outbreak began

The ONS figures show that 135,575 deaths were registered in England and Wales between March 21 and May 15 2020.

This was 53,960 more deaths than the average for this period in the previous five years.

Covid-19 was responsible for 76 per cent of these excess deaths.

The ONS said it is continuing to investigate the number of non-Covid-19-related deaths and will publish detailed analysis on this in the future.

There was a peak on April 17 in the number of deaths in care homes in England and Wales - since then the daily total has been on a broadly downwards trend.