CORONAVIRUS has been a factor - direct or otherwise - in more than 1,500 deaths across Gwent, according to the Office for National Statistics.

But its latest figures show weekly deaths in the area at their lowest in five months.

Based on ONS figures to the week ending March 12, coronavirus has been recorded as a factor on the death certificates of 1,526 people in the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board area (Gwent), since the pandemic began.

ONS figures around Covid-19 deaths are higher than those published by Public Health Wales, the latter including reports of the deaths of hospitalised patients in Welsh hospitals, or care home residents, where Covid-19 has been confirmed with a positive laboratory test and the clinician suspects this was a causative factor in the death.

But Public Health Wales does not include people who may have died of Covid-19 but who were not confirmed by laboratory test, those who died in other settings, or Welsh residents who died outside Wales.

The ONS puts the coronavirus and related death toll in Wales at 7,699 up to the week ending March 12 - the latest available.

The Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board area, taking in Merthyr Tydfil, Rhondda Cynon Taf and Bridgend, has had the most coronavirus-related deaths, according to the ONS, with 1,579.

Public Health Wales had confirmed 5,498 deaths up to yesterday, with 952 of these in Gwent. By the Public Health Wales measure, comparatively far more deaths have been attributed to coronavirus in the Cwm Taf Morgannwg UHB area (1,503).

The ONS figures also chart the weekly toll of deaths in each health board area in Wales, over the past year.

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For Gwent, they reveal that the first coronavirus and related death was in the week ending March 20 last year. Just four weeks later, hospitals in the area were close to being overwhelmed with coronavirus cases, and many patients were in intensive care.

For the week ending April 17 2020, 95 people in Gwent died due to coronavirus or related factors, according to the ONS. This was the most in a single week here during the first wave of the virus. after that, deaths fell gradually as the first wave subsided.

For almost four months, from the week ending June 13 to that ending October 9, there were 22 coronavirus and related deaths in Gwent.

But the second wave in terms of increased cases had begun back in September, and the devastating effects were beginning to manifest in increased deaths once again.

During the two following weeks - to October 23 - there were 26 deaths, more than in those previous four months combined, and there were 26 in the following week alone, followed by 100 in the next fortnight.

The two-week firebreak lockdown of late October and early November did little to quell the rising toll, and the number of deaths rose weekly through December and into January.

For the week ending January 8, the ONS recorded 106 deaths in Gwent alone as Wales - locked down once again - endured the worst of the second wave.

There were 96 deaths recorded in Gwent in the week to January 22 - but since then, there has been a dramatic reduction over several weeks, as the effect of lockdown and increasingly, the vaccine roll-out, took hold.

For the latest week for which ONS figures are available, that ending March 12, four deaths were recorded, the lowest weekly figure in Gwent since early October.