A FURTHER 13 people who tested positive for coronavirus have died in hospital in England, bringing the total number of confirmed reported deaths in hospitals to 29,444, NHS England said on Thursday.

The patients were aged between 49 and 90 and one patient, aged 86, had no known underlying health conditions.

Another four deaths were reported with no positive Covid-19 test result.

A health expert has warned there is not enough immunity within the population to prevent a second wave of infection.

Dr Lilith Whittles, postdoctoral researcher in infectious disease epidemiology at Imperial College London, said calculating the infection rate – known as R – on a regional level is going to be “our best signifier that we have entered a second wave”.

At a Covid-19 webinar hosted by the Royal Society of Medicine on Thursday, she agreed that if local outbreaks were not managed correctly they could potentially lead to a second wave.

Dr Whittles said: “We’re nowhere near the level of population immunity that we would need to prevent the occurrence of a second wave. In a worst-case scenario of a second wave we could see a peak similar to the first.”