Oldham recorded the highest number of coronavirus cases since the peak of the pandemic last week – and the rate of infection is still rising.
There were 208 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Oldham in the week up to August 7, according to the latest data from Public Health England (PHE).
It’s the first time the seven day total in the borough has gone above 200 since April 14 – which was the very height of the pandemic.
The infection rate there, 87.7 in the week ending August 7, is still the highest across all of Greater Manchester and it has been rising day by day.
There have only been four days back in April when the infection rate was higher in Oldham than it was on August 7.
Oldham now has the second highest rate in England, just below Pendle where the rate has jumped from 44.5 in the seven days to July 31 to 96.6 in the seven days to August 7.
A total of 89 new cases have been recorded in Pendle during that time.
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It comes as the global number of coronavirus cases has reached 20 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Centre.
The grim milestone was reached in the early hours of Tuesday morning, UK time, with 20,011,186 cases worldwide.
The total number of global coronavirus deaths stands at 734,664, according to experts at Johns Hopkins, the American university whose aggregated tally has become the main reference for monitoring the disease.
The US has also suffered the most deaths at 163,331, while there have been 101,000 in Brazil, 52,000 in Mexico, 46,611 in the UK and more than 44,000 in India.
Health officials in the UK said on Monday that 21 people had died and 816 people had tested positive in a 24-hour period.
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