SECURITY staff removed ‘Covid-19 deniers’ from Colchester Hospital after they took pictures of corridors and posted them online.

The incident took place at the hospital over the weekend.

Chief executive Nick Hulme criticised the individuals saying “words fail me.”

Speaking to the BBC he said hospital security had to “remove people who were taking photographs of empty corridors and then posting them on social media, saying the hospital is not in crisis”.

He added: “When you’ve got that sort of social media pressure and those people denying the reality of Covid it really concerns us. Words fail me..

“Why would people do that when we all know somebody who has died from Covid?

“Of course there are empty corridors at the weekend in outpatients, because that’s the right thing to do.

“We are facing the biggest health challenge we’ve ever seen and we are still seeing people flouting the [social distancing] rules.”

As part of Covid rules on social distancing many outpatient consultations have moved online or over the phone.

It comes as the hospital recorded another seven deaths due to Covid 19.

All of the deaths happened on January 2 and bring the total number of lives lost since the start of the pandemic to 574.

Since Christmas Day there have been  47 deaths related to Covid at the trust, which runs Colchester and Ipswich Hospitals.