Almost as many people are dying of Covid-19 in the city region now as at the peak of the first wave.
New figures from Public Health England show 250 people in the Liverpool City Region died of Covid-19 during the week up to January 23.
This is the highest level of Covid deaths seen in the region since mid-April, when weekly deaths peaked at 255.
The huge rise in deaths since the start of the year is another result of the rapid increase in infections that followed the relaxation of restrictions on Christmas Day and left the region’s hospitals struggling with more Covid patients than ever before.
Some boroughs have already passed the number of weekly deaths seen at the peak of the first wave.
St Helens, Wirral and Sefton are all seeing more deaths now than at any previous point in the pandemic while the region as a whole has seen almost 600 deaths since the start of the year - almost three times as many as in the whole of December.
With hospitals still under severe pressure, doctors fear that this trend could continue for at least another week before deaths start to fall again.
Cases of Covid-19 are still coming down across the city region, with infection rates falling by 50% in the last two weeks thanks to the new lockdown restrictions.
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However, the lag between people catching the virus, becoming ill enough to need hospital treatment and then dying means the death figures are yet to reflect this decline.
The city region’s total death toll for the whole crisis has now reached more than 3,000 - the equivalent of one in every 500 residents dying of the virus.
Nationally, there have been more than 100,000 deaths over the course of the pandemic, although the weekly totals are starting to fall following the implementation of Tier 4 restrictions in the South East before Christmas and then the national lockdown in the new year.
