Almost 550 patients who had tested positive for Covid-19 died in Norfolk's hospitals during January, new figures have revealed.

The Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital saw more than half of its Covid-19 deaths for the whole pandemic last month.

There were 285 deaths of patients who had been confirmed as having coronavirus in January - 55pc of the 521 patients who had tested positive who have died there since the start of the pandemic in March.

The hospital, yesterday confirmed the latest deaths - a further 16 between last Thursday (January 28) and Monday (February 1).

They were eight women and eight men. Of the women, one was in her 50s, two were in their 60s, two were in their 70s, two were in their 80s, and one was in her 90s.

Of the eight men, three were in their 70s, one was in his 80s, (with no underlying health conditions noted) and four were in their 90s.

The remaining 15 all had underlying health conditions.

There were more than 100 deaths of patients who had tested positive for Covid-19 at the James Paget Hospital in Gorleston in January.

The figure of 106 deaths was 38pc of the 280 deaths of patients with coronavirus since March last year.

At the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King's Lynn, there were 131 deaths of Covid-19 positive patients in January.

That was 35pc of the 374 deaths of patients who had tested positive since March last year.

There were 24 deaths of patients with Covid-19 in community hospitals in Norfolk during January, 39pc of the 62 total since March last year.

It took the total for January to 546, 44pc of the 1,237 deaths of Covid-19 positive patients in hospitals since the pandemic began.

However, in positive news, the rate of coronavirus infections in Norfolk has fallen for the third consecutive week and looks set to drop below 300 per 100,000 for the first time since mid-December.

Public Health England data shows the county’s rate stood at 306 infections per 100,000 people in the week up to January 27 – a drop of 23pc from the week before.

All local authority areas in Norfolk saw overall rates fall for the second week in a row.

And last month, it was reported that the number of Covid patients that have been discharged from the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital had passed 1,000.