CORONAVIRUS outbreaks in the workplace are being blamed for a rise in infection rates as Bolton was named as just one of ten areas which had experienced a week-on-week rise in new virus cases.

Out of 315 local areas in England, just thee per cent ­— 10 ­— have seen a rise in case rates and the rest had experienced a fall.

Health bosses believe that many people in Bolton are in jobs that cannot be done from home, increasing the risk of coronavirus spread ­— and are working with employers to pub in measures to stop the spread.

This includes offering asymptomatic testing.

In the seven days to February 6, Bolton recorded 829 new positive cases of coronavirus at an infection rate of 288.3 per 100,000 residents.

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This is a significant rise from the previous seven days to January 30 where the town recorded 50 fewer cases ­— 771 ­— equalling to an infection rate of 268.1 per 100,000.

Research by the public health team had found that infection rates were highest amongst the oldest age groups and people of working age ­— and recent outbreaks in workplaces and care homes have also contributed to this rise.

And 75 per cent of positive cases are from working age people and rates in this group have been persistently high.

Bolton Council’s director of public health, Dr Helen Lowey, said: "Rates in Bolton have been trending downwards, although not as quickly as we would like and in recent days this has levelled off.

"The virus has changed and can spread much more easily and we are seeing the highest rates of infection among working age people.

“Regardless of the variant, the way to control the virus remains the same and we must all stay at home as much as possible and follow the fundamentals of hands, face, space."

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Leader of Bolton Council, Cllr David Greenhalgh, said: "Bolton is not unique in seeing this trend, a similar pattern can be seen across the north west where a higher proportion of people are employed in sectors where they are unable to work from home.

“We are working with employers to promote Covid-safe measures and to introduce asymptomatic testing to alert those who may be passing the virus to their colleagues without realising it."

Bolton Labour's lead on health, Cllr Sue Haworth, said: "The government needs to step in and increase the provision of isolation payments urgently. Many people cannot afford to isolate, putting themselves and others at risk of coronavirus.

"We need a much more robust and fairer system for isolation that works here if we are going to break these coronavirus rates.

“The truth is that while we all welcome the impressive vaccination programme we know that we need the Test, Trace and Isolate system in Bolton to be working really well and for some time ahead.

"If we will be living with variants of covid for a while here, then we need a system that works that includes people being able to take time off work to isolate with this £500 payment to support them, in order to deal with covid outbreaks effectively."

The dominant variant of Covid-19 in Bolton is said to be the variant that originated in the south east of England before Christmas and which spreads much more easily.

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