Four more coronavirus patients have died in NHS hospitals in Wigan, taking the total number of deaths so far this month to 21.
The latest update comes after three months when there were no Covid-19 fatalities recorded at all at the Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Trust.
Since the pandemic began, a total of 274 people have now died at the hospital trust after being infected with coronavirus.
More than 150 of these were during April at the height of the pandemic and the number of fatalities dropped during May and June.
After a patient died on July 2nd, there was then a period of three months when the NHS Trust did not report a single death among coronavirus patients.
This came to an end on Friday, October 2nd when another fatality was recorded and in the two weeks since then a further 20 patients have died.
The Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Trust includes Wigan Infirmary, Leigh Infirmary and Wrightington Hospital.
In the summer, Wigan had one of the lowest coronavirus infection rates in the region but has seen a surge in the number of positive tests since the beginning of September.
The number of people testing positive rose almost tenfold from 126 in the week ending September 6 to 1,235 in the week ending on October 10.
The most recent figures show that Wigan now has the third highest coronavirus infection rate per 100,000 people out of the ten boroughs in Greater Manchester.
