POLITICAL leaders are calling for the “minority” of people who are breaking coronavirus rules to change their behaviour as pressure mounts on hospitals.

In an online press conference this afternoon, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham said in the last seven days there have been 1,131 reports of covid-related breaches and 623 house parties or gatherings.

And there have been 53 reports of gatherings in homes and 89 meet-ups in outdoor settings.

A total of 120 fixed penalty notice fines were issued by Greater Manchester Police over the weekend with the seven-day figure totalling 140.

There has been a total of 2,550 fines given out to people since the start of the pandemic, according to Mr Burnham.

He said: "While the majority of people are doing the right thing there is a significant minority who are not.

"They are disregarding the rules and obviously that is very difficult to see with the pressure that is on the NHS.

"There are also a lot of repeat offenders. Greater Manchester Police has been to the same addresses on a number of occasions where people have repeatedly broken the covid legislation."

Mr Burnham said police have also raised concerns over businesses staying open during the lockdown with some being because of a misunderstanding while others have been knowingly breaking the rules.

The mayor also shared a survey which found that 55 per cent of workers believe their employees offer good "covid-secure" businesses but eight per cent said "no", an issue which has alarmed him and that he wants to reduce.

Deputy mayor Sir Richard Leese, who leads on health, presented figures which showed that there was a major increase in Greater Manchester's seven-day rate of positive cases per 100,000 people again.

The region's rate rose from 321.8 to the week ending January 1 up to 449.1 in the seven days up to Friday, January 8.

In that time, Bolton's rate jumped up from 260.8 to 385.0.

The Bolton News: FiguresFigures

Hospital admissions and people going into intensive care is also increasing. Those suffering with Covid-19 make up the majority of those in intensive care unit beds.

Sir Richard said: "Hospitals are not falling down at the moment but clearly the pressure on hospitals is growing all the time both in critical care and in general and acute beds.

"We have not reached the peak yet, we will probably reach it in one or two weeks.

"It will more likely be a plateau.

"We may be playing catch-up (with other parts of the country's covid rates) but we are catching up.

"The position is continuing to deteriorate.

"We also need help from families in the discharging of patients where there is no medical reason for them to still be in hospital."

Arrangements can be made for patients to be moved to care settings to free up space for the NHS, Sir Richard said.

He also extended his thanks to those who have been complying with the restrictions but warned the "small minority" of people breaking the rules that we are in the "worst" part of the pandemic and they are presenting problems for the NHS.

Sir Richard also reiterated that the transmission of the virus from young people to older friends and relatives continues to results in more serious cases of the virus.

A positive from the figures is that the percentage of care home residents with Covid-19 has not increased and stands at 1.9 per cent as of yesterday, Tuesday, the same number on January 15.

Mr Burnham has also raised concerns over the supply of the vaccine in the borough.