A FURTHER 24 people in Bolton have reported as testing positive for coronavirus today.

The number is more than double that recorded for Thursday, when 11 people were said to have tested positive.

It brings the total number of people who are confirmed to have caught Covid-19 in the borough to 2,279 - a cumulative infection rate of 790.5 cases per 100,000 of population.

Throughout the UK 1,276 people were found to have tested positive for the virus, a total of 331,644 since the outbreak began.

Today nine people in the UK were recorded as having died with the virus, although none of them were from Bolton.

Latest figures from NHS England show that the Royal Bolton Hospital has not recorded any deaths from coronavirus for a week.

The last death from the illness at the hospital occurred on August 22, bringing the total number of fatalities to 231.

The total number of confirmed reported deaths in hospitals in England now stands at 29,541.

The patients were aged between 63 and 95 and all had known underlying health conditions.