Covid-19 case rate in Wigan falling and around city-region's average

There were 118 new cases in the borough in the seven-day period between April 10 and April 16, the tracker said.

That gives a rate of 35.9 per 100,000 residents.

This is lower than the previous week's figure and the fifth-highest rate among the 10 local authorities in Greater Manchester.

The borough's rate is also higher than the ones recorded in neighbouring authorities Chorley, West Lancashire, St Helens and Warrington.

The trend of falling case rates can be seen both regionally and nationally.

The over-60s weekly incidence rate for Wigan is 12.3 cases per 100,000 residents, the third-lowest among the 10 Greater Manchester areas.

Across the 25 wards of Wigan borough seven saw an increase between the latest seven-day period covering April 8 to April 14 and the previous week.

Lowton East had the highest rate of cases for the latest week, with Leigh West having the second-highest rate.

Leigh West saw the largest increase from the previous week, followed by Standish with Langtree.

However, Wigan Council is now warning that as case rates are falling numbers in individual wards become smaller and therefore rises and falls on a week-by-week basis should be interpreted with far more caution.

Indeed, in the latest week the case figures for five wards have had to be suppressed for data protection purposes as they are lower than three.

There were 11 Covid-positive patients in the borough's hospitals on April 20.

This was a decrease from last week, the tracker said.

Local tracing teams had successfully managed 93 per cent of all the contacts in the cases escalated to them as of April 20.

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