CORONAVIRUS may never go away, a Royal Bolton Hospital chief has warned.

More waves of COVID-19 are expected and the virus could enter a “flu cycle”, the board of directors at Bolton NHS Foundation Trust has been told.

Chief operating officer Andy Ennis also spoke of a North-South divide as he revealed the trust’s plans for the next phase of the crisis on Wednesday.

He said: “We are preparing for the next stage. It may not be as big a peak, but we will still get a surge of COVID. I expect this to last at least a year.

“COVID will probably never go away now. What we don’t know is if it will become a flu cycle.

“We are estimating that that’s likely but so much of this depends on policy which is dictated from the South and the North is very different.”

Royal Bolton Hospital has 35 intensive care beds of which nine are currently occupied – but even at the peak of the outbreak, there were still 10 available.

On Wednesday morning, there were two patients in critical care with coronavirus and 31 patients in total at the hospital with COVID-19 symptoms.

He said: “We’re past the peak quite clearly, but we’re still seeing more deaths this year compared to previous years.

“There’s definitely a North-South divide in the R-rate which is still close to 1 in the North West.

“Typically, we’re seeing 150 new cases in the North per day and that’s leading to some significant issues.

“We’re at 75 per cent of our normal capacity across Greater Manchester. We are close to the maximum capacity and could quickly drop over into excess.”

Mr Ennis also said that infection hits those closest to the poverty line and persons from black, asian and minority ethnic backgrounds hardest.

Bolton, and the North at large, is therefore at greater risk from the virus, he said.

The health and social system in the borough is now planning for the next phase of the crisis considering the best, likely and worst-case scenarios.

Mr Ennis also told the board of directors’ about testing capacity at the trust.

He said: “We now have three platforms in place and we’re increasing testing capacity as we go on.

“But there’s still a challenge. There’s supply issues particularly with reagents nationally.

“Track and trace has been launched so demand for testing is going to go up exponentially.

“We need to be doing about 1,000 tests a week in Bolton to make sure it works.

“We are getting more machinery and capacity going through, but we’ll have to build it up slowly.”