Man and woman, both aged 60 to 79, tragically die having tested positive for COVID-19

A man and a woman, both aged between 60 and 79, died on Sunday, October 18, according to the latest data published by the Department of Health on Monday.

It brings to 28 the number of people from Derry and Strabane who have lost their lives since the pandemic began.

Five more people were admitted to Western Trust hospitals at the weekend. Three were admitted to Altnagelvin while two were admitted to the South West Acute Hospital in Enniskillen.

At midnight on Sunday 54 people were being treated in Western Trust hospitals as COVID-19 inpatients.

Between October 12 and October 18, 1,160 people tested positive in the Derry and Strabane area.

The daily change in the cumulative number of patients with a positive test in Derry and Strabane between October 17 and October 18 was 87.

While these figures remain high there are some signs that the COVID-19 case rate is declining in the Derry and Strabane area.

On Friday the case rate for the combined Derry and Strabane council area was 892 per 100,000 people but it has now fallen to 769.9.

The Department of Health started publishing a detailed breakdown of COVID-19 cases by post code at the end of last week.

On Friday this showed that the cityside of Derry recorded a seven day case rate of 1115.9 with 702 positive cases between October 9 and October 15 in BT48.

The second highest case rate in the north on Friday was BT47, comprising the Waterside of Derry and its rural hinterland as far as Dungiven, which stood at 997.4. There were 613 positive COVID-19 cases over the seven days on the eastbank of the Foyle.

However, both of these figures have fallen.

For the last seven day reporting period the figure for BT48 was down to 665.2 per 100,000 and for BT47 it was 530.4, according to the data released on Monday.

The BT48 figure remains the highest in the north.