THREE people in Powys has died last week after contracting suspected coronavirus, Office for National Statistics figures show.

One of the deaths was in a care home, another death was in a hospital, and another death was registered as having happened at home.

It brings the overall number of people to have died with a suspected case of the disease in Powys to 89 since the pandemic began, based on the ONS figures which show every death where coronavirus is mentioned on the death certificate.

These differ from the daily Public Health Wales update – which have a more limited scope, but which contain confirmed cases in Wales. Powys Teaching Health Board has indicated a preference to use the ONS data as the strongest indicator of the spread of the disease in the county, however.

Since the outbreak began, the ONS stats show that there have been seven deaths in people's homes, 36 in hospitals, and 46 in care homes.

Data differences

The data differs from that published by Public Health Wales, which shows 14 confirmed deaths of people with coronavirus in Powys, for a number of reasons.

The health body's figures relate to cases where coronavirus has been confirmed, and only include people who have died in hospital settings in Wales.

As such, this excludes people who have died in hospitals in England, those who have passed away in care homes, and those who died without having been tested to confirm the presence of coronavirus.

The ONS figures refer to all cases in which coronavirus is mentioned on a death certificate, even where it may not have been the primary cause of death.

The figures also factor in additional deaths in previous weeks which had not been included previously.