BOLTON has stepped up its fight against coronavirus this weekend amid a surge in cases after the spread of the Indian variant.

Council teams have been to homes in Deane, Great Lever and Rumworth to hand out testing kits to residents in efforts to track Covid-19.

The surge testing has been going on in the BL3 area for a week now following a rise in the borough's infection rate.

Bolton Council's director of public health, Dr Helen Lowey, said: "It's really important that people take the test, even if they don't have symptoms.

"We want to stop the spread of the virus, we want to be able to contain it.

"What we are finding is it is (spreading through) community transmission, and the rates within the schools and businesses have reflected what has happened in the community.

"We know this variant is highly transmissible so we really do want to stop the spread.

"We are working across the borough.

"We want to want to vaccinate all of our population.

"We're working through the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation criteria and we're encouraging people with health conditions to come forward."

Bolton Councils director of public health, Dr Helen Lowey

Bolton Council's director of public health, Dr Helen Lowey

Dr Lowey added that the community has worked really well to support the surge testing operation.

And she welcomes the extra help on offer from the army, which Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged in a press conference yesterday.

Site planner for the national surge rapid response team, George Hopkins, has been sent to Bolton to support the council with the response.

He said: "There's a huge amount of proactive work from Bolton Council, which gives me a lot of confidence that they'll get under control.

"You need to start testing and understand where it is and obviously then people can self-isolate.

"It's as long as it needs to go for but it's typically two weeks and then things will hopefully start to come down.

"So far in Bolton I think it's been going very well. It was obviously quiet at the beginning and then we've seen the amount of people coming into the mobile centres increase very rapidly.

"The information is working."

Site planner for the national surge rapid response team, George Hopkins

Site planner for the national surge rapid response team, George Hopkins

Meanwhile, a vaccination bus has been set up at Essa Academy today, where 4,000 Pfizer jabs have been available to people who live, work or study in the BL3 or BL4 areas up to 4pm.

Dr Helen Wall, Bolton CCGs director of clinical commissioning

Dr Helen Wall, Bolton CCG's director of clinical commissioning

The scene at Essa Academy, where the vaccination bus was set up

The scene at Essa Academy, where the vaccination bus was set up

Bolton CCG's director of clinical commissioning, Dr Helen Wall, has been encouraging people to turn up.