539 further coronavirus cases and one more death recorded in Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon

A Coronavirus testing centre in Dalston, east London. There were a further 6,042 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK as of 9am on Saturday, taking the overall number to 429,277. A further 34 deaths were recorded.

The number of coronavirus cases in Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon increased by 539 in the last 24 hours, official figures show – and one more death was recorded.

A total of 55,854 people had been confirmed as testing positive for Covid-19 in Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon when the UK coronavirus daily dashboard was updated on January 18 (Tuesday), up from 55,315 on Monday.

The rate of infection in Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon now stands at 25,712 cases per 100,000 people, lower than the Northern Ireland average of 25,730.

Across the UK, the number of recorded cases increased by 93,890 over the period, to 15,399,300.

People with a positive lateral flow test no longer need to take a follow-up PCR test to confirm the result unless they have coronavirus symptoms.

UK case numbers currently only include LFT results for England and Northern Ireland, with lateral flow testing data for Scotland due to be added in the coming weeks.

There was also one more coronavirus death recorded in the latest 24-hour period in Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon.

The dashboard shows 412 people had died in the area by January 18 (Tuesday) – up from 411 on Monday.

It means there have been seven deaths in the past week, which is an increase on two the previous week.

They were among 3,048 deaths recorded across Northern Ireland.

The figures include anyone who died within 28 days of a positive test result for Covid-19, and whose usual residence was in Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon.

Daily death counts are revised each day, with each case backdated to the actual date of death.