Covid death toll at Harrogate Hospital rises to 93 as infection rates fall slightly after record high

The two deaths were recorded on November 12 and bring the hospital's Covid death toll to 93.

It comes at the borough's weekly infection rate has dipped back below 300 cases per 100,000 people - with it now standing at 285.

That figure is still three times higher than it was at the start of October (99) and remains above the current national average of 269.

A total of 459 new cases have been confirmed in Harrogate in the last seven days. The wards with the highest numbers were Central Harrogate and Knaresborough North, which both recorded 44.

The area of least concern was the Dishthorpe, Baldersby and Markington ward which recorded 6 during the same period.

These are all the Harrogate charities getting a share of £400,000 from Government's Coronavirus Community Support Fund

England is now approaching the two-week mark on its second national lockdown and government officials will soon start to decide which tier of local restrictions areas will be placed back into when it ends on December 2.

North Yorkshire - including Harrogate - had entered the lockdown in Tier 1 but officials have warned the county could be moved up a level if infection and hospitalisation rates do not begin to slow.

Richard Flinton, chief executive of North Yorkshire County Council, said: "We had been doing very well and we went into the current lockdown in the lowest tier of intervention. Sadly, our current rates put us in a very different place.

"Over the weeks ahead, we will need to harness that collective energy and take some dynamic action if we are to emerge from the second national lockdown in the same tier we were when we entered.

"The facts are unavoidable and while most of you will be rigidly sticking to the rules, unfortunately some continue to flout them.

"The outcome is that we all pay for that behaviour."

By Jacob Webster, Local Democracy Reporter