ONE hundred deaths due to coronavirus have been confirmed in Gwent in 2021, out of more than 600 across Wales, according to Public Health Wales.

Ten of those deaths in Gwent have been confirmed today, among a further 54 in Wales.

They bring the total number of deaths due to coronavirus, since the pandemic began, to 4,117 across Wales, of which 776 have been in Gwent, again according to Public Health Wales.

There have been a further 1,644 cases confirmed in Wales today, with 285 of these in Gwent, the latter as follows: Caerphilly, 84; Newport, 72; Monmouthshire, 60; Torfaen, 43; Blaenau Gwent, 26.

There is further evidence that cases and case rates are slowing however, though they remain far too high - and the vaccination programme in Wales provided first doses to more than 11,600 people, some 1,470 more than on Monday, and more than double the numbers on most days prior to that.

By the end of yesterday, almost 113,000 people in Wales had received a first dose of coronavirus vaccine.

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The all-Wales rolling weekly case rate - to the week ending January 9 - was 389.5, the first time it has dipped under 400 since before the New Year.

Torfaen, with a rate to January 9 of 474.7 per 100,000, has the highest rate in Gwent and the fifth highest of Wales' 22 council areas.

Newport (433.2) has the sixth highest rate in Wales, and Caerphilly (367.3) the ninth highest. The weekly rate in Blaenau Gwent (360.7) - while remaining like those elsewhere, far too high - has fallen considerably in the past couple of weeks and is now the 13th highest in Wales. Monmouthshire (289.7) has the eighth lowest rate in Wales.

Wrexham (922.4 per 100,000) and Flintshire (641.9) have the two highest rolling weekly case rates in Wales, with the newer, more infectious strain of coronavirus continuing to hit these parts of north Wales especially hard, though these rates are down too, on recent days.

Test positivity rates remain high, though the all-Wales rate for the week to January 9 was 19.6 per cent, the first time it has fallen below 20 per cent this year.

Two areas of Gwent continue to have test positivity rates higher than that all-Wales average - Torfaen (21.9 per cent) and Newport (20.1 per cent).

The newly confirmed cases across Wales today are:

Wrexham - 202

Cardiff - 182

Flintshire - 147

Rhondda Cynon Taf - 100

Carmarthenshire - 86

Caerphilly - 84

Vale of Glamorgan - 81

Newport - 72

Swansea - 72

Bridgend - 64

Monmouthshire - 60

Denbighshire - 60

Torfaen - 43

Neath Port Talbot - 43

Powys - 42

Conwy - 38

Pembrokeshire - 34

Gwynedd - 27

Blaenau Gwent - 26

Anglesey - 25

Merthyr Tydfil - 14

Ceredigion - 14

Unknown location - 16

Resident outside Wales - 112

Public Health Wales figures include 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.

They do not include people who may have died of Covid-19 but who were not confirmed by laboratory testing, those who died in other settings, or Welsh residents who died outside of Wales, and the true number of Covid-19 deaths will be higher.

The Office for National Statistics - which counts all deaths in which coronavirus is mentioned on the death certificate - puts the number of deaths in Wales much higher.