FOR the first time in several weeks there has been no daily increase in the number of recorded cases of coronavirus in Thurrock.

It has remained at 269.

Thurrock Council's portfolio holder for health, Cllr Allen Mayes, has praised the Thurrock community for its efforts, saying: "We are beginning to see that the measures we have all taken to slow the spread of coronavirus are really working and that everything we have been doing over the past weeks has saved lives as we came together to tackle this pandemic."

However, that news comes on a day that has seen significant increases in the national figures released by Public health England, who are now including statistics from care homes in their daily reports.

The total number of confirmed coronavirus cases is recorded as 165,221 - and increase of 4,076, while the total number of deaths is now officially recorded as 26,097.

However, when the latest deaths in care homes are included, the figure is expected to be significantly higher - pushing the UK into third place behind USA and Italy in terms of the number of Codi-19-related deaths.