THE number of coronavirus cases in Warrington soared on Friday but this was not due to a surge in new positive diagnoses.

Public Health England has changed the way it records positive cases to remove duplicates across the pillar one and pillar two testing systems.

This ensures that a person who tests positive is only counted once.

Due to this change, 30,302 previously reported cases were removed from the UK total last week.

Pillar 1 data shows results of swab testing in Public Health England labs and NHS hospitals.

While pillar 2 includes tests undertaken by commercial providers in the wider community such as care homes.

The new recording system now includes those identified by testing in all settings.

Due to this change, many cases previously not attributed to an area are now included in local authority totals.

Therefore, there was not a recent surge in positive cases – the cases that are now being reported occurred from April onwards.

Last week, there were 810 positive cases in Warrington and it now stands at 1,316 as of yesterday, Tuesday.