Wirral's virus hospital figures continue to provide signs of hope, but huge challenges remain.

The very latest numbers+, which are for February 9, there were 135 COVID-19 patients in the borough's hospitals, a major fall on 211 a week earlier.

This decline is welcome, but it still leaves Wirral with more than double the number of virus patients it was treating throughout most of December, when figures were regularly in the 60s.

However, the latest numbers are less perilous than they were last month, after a huge surge in hospitalisations over Christmas and much of January.

On December 22 there were 62 COVID patients, by December 29 this had risen to 78, then 137 on January 5, 252 on January 12 and 272 on January 19.

The biggest single figure for admissions was registered on January 22, when 279 people were being treated for the virus at Wirral's hospitals.

Numbers were spiralling to heights many had imagined they could not, bearing in mind that the peak for the first wave last April was 131, so the recent success in getting numbers down is a major achievement.

But the figures were not all positive.

There are still 17 COVID patients on ventilators, down just one from 18 last week.

This figure, which captures some of the most serious virus cases in the borough's hospital wards, has remained stable for the last couple of weeks despite general COVID admission figures falling.

It is hoped that with more people getting vaccinated every day and a continuing fall in cases, the situation will improve.

In the week up to February 8, Wirral had 613 coronavirus cases at a rate of 189 per 100,000, a fall on the 840 cases at a rate of 259 per 100,000 seen a week earlier.

This builds on several weeks of declining numbers, but still leaves the borough far above the rate of 52 per 100,000 seen at the end of the second lockdown in December, showing there is still much progress to be made.