Oldham now has the highest Covid-19 infection rate in the country, overtaking Pendle.
The town is now recording more daily coronavirus cases than at the height of the pandemic in April.
There were 258 cases in the week ending August 8 and 248 cases in the week ending August 9, according to the latest data from Public Health England (PHE).
The previous highest was 248 on April 12.
There was no data released on Tuesday, because of a technical hitch so Public Health England has released two days worth of figures.
On the latest data, for the week ending August 9, Oldham had an infection rate of 104.6. But on the previous day it was actually slightly higher at 108.8.
Separately, a Covid map showing local neighbourhoods - updated by Public Health England this afternoon - shows two of Oldham's central communities had the highest case numbers in the country in the week to August 8.
Alexandra Park recorded 72 cases and Werneth recorded 43.
There were 991 Covid-19 cases recorded in Greater Manchester in the seven days up to August 9 - an increase of 176 on the previous week.
More than a quarter of the new cases were in Oldham.
Oldham’s infection rate currently stands at 104.6 in the seven days up to August 9 - still the highest across all of Greater Manchester.
It also has the highest rate of any local authority in England, jumping from 62 cases per 100,000 people in the seven days to August 2.
In Pendle, the rate has risen from 66.2 to 82.5, with 76 new cases.
Blackburn with Darwen is third, where the rate has fallen from 83.5 to 73.5, with 110 new cases.
Leicester has seen a rise from 56.7 to 68.9, with 244 new cases.
Across Greater Manchester there were 991 cases of Covid-19 recorded in the seven days up to August 9.
Like Oldham, Rochdale has also seen an acceleration in positive tests.
There were 99 cases recorded in the borough in the seven days up to August 9 - up from 69 the previous week. The infection rate stands at 44.5.
The the number of new cases recorded in the seven days to August 9 across each borough were:
Oldham - 248
Rochdale - 99
Tameside - 86
Manchester - 207
Bolton - 83
Salford - 63
Bury - 48
Stockport - 74
Trafford - 58
Wigan - 25
The PHE figures, for the seven days to August 7, are based on tests carried out in laboratories (pillar one of the Government’s testing programme) and in the wider community (pillar two).
It is this data which the government uses to determine whether to put a region into local lockdown - and the data would also be used to decide if local restrictions should be lifted
The rate is expressed as the number of new cases per 100,000 people.
Death rates are going down and there were no deaths recorded at any Greater Manchester hospital for three days running over the weekend.
Also, the number of people being tested is rising, which will lead to the number of positive tests rising. However, there is no publicly accessible data for how many tests were conducted in all areas, so it is not possible to compare these.
