Coronavirus: Sheffield tops 600 confirmed cases as city’s death toll rises to 29

Today (Thursday, April 2) it was announced that eight more people who have tested positive for COVID-19 have died in hospital in Sheffield - bringing the city’s death toll to 29.

The confirmed case rate in the city currently stands at 602, up 61 from yesterday.

Elsewhere in South Yorkshire, there are now 134 confirmed cases in Barnsley, 129 in Rotherham, and 95 in Doncaster.

NHS England announced five more people have died in Barnsley, bringing the total to nine, and there have been two new coronavirus deaths in Rotherham, bringing the total to four.

The total of coronavirus deaths in Doncaster stays at five.

Sheffield remains the worst-affected UK location outside of London and the south of England - the current confirmed total is behind only Birmingham, Hampshire and Surrey by upper-tier local authority area.

Data for London, which has the highest number of confirmed cases overall, is calculated by each borough.

Across the whole of the UK, 33,718 have tested positive for COVID-19. A total of 2,921 people who tested positive have died.

The latest figures have been provided by Public Health England as part of its daily update.

But the PHE briefing has attracted criticism.

Dr Andrew Lee, a reader of global public health at Sheffield University and executive director of primary care and population health at NHS Vale of York clinical commissioning group, told The Guardian: “That tracker is really misleading. In some senses they should just turn it off because everywhere is testing differently.

“So you can’t compare place A with place B with place C. And it’s not like you’re just following a score because the interpretation of those numbers is really complicated.”

Greg Fell, Sheffield's director of public health, previously told The Star the main reason the city has such a high number of cases is that it has been testing more people – a statement Dr Lee agreed with.