CORONAVIRUS cases across the borough have surged – after a technical error saw what would usually be a week's worth of cases reported in just three days.

Over the weekend, 500 new covid-19 cases were recorded across Bolton.

A whopping 230 positive results were added to the borough’s statistics on Sunday – almost as many cases as Bolton could expect to see in an entire week at the start of September.

A further 146 cases were confirmed on Saturday, whilst another 124 cases were added to the figures yesterday afternoon.

The newly confirmed infections include positive results from weeks ago – with one of yesterday's confirmed cases dating back to a test taken on September 14, three weeks ago.

Although the person taking the test will have received the result much quicker, cases are not transferred to the NHS Test and Trace system for contact tracing until they're added to official statistics because of the way the data is collected.

This means that noone who came into contact with that person tested on September 14 has been identified as a possible carrier.

It is not yet known how many contacts have been missed.