M&S supplier Greencore's Covid-19 outbreak passes 300 cases

Production work at Greencore restarted less than a week after the factory closed

The number of workers at a sandwich making factory who have tested positive for Covid-19 has passed 300.

A first round of tests at M&S supplier Greencore, in Northampton, found 287 people had the virus.

A further 37 workers have now provided positive results following a second round of testing.

Public Health Northamptonshire said the factory had been deep cleaned and it was satisfied "standards remain really high".

Greencore first started "proactively testing" workers due to rising numbers of cases in the town.

It had originally been announced 299 workers at the factory, which employs 2,100 people, had tested positive. That figure was revised down to 287 because of duplicate tests.

Northampton was designated an "area of intervention" at the same time as production at Greencore closed

However, a second round of testing took place to make sure no-one had been incubating the virus.

In all, 834 workers were tested again, with 37 coming back Covid positive. That takes the total number of cases in the outbreak to 324.

Following the news of the outbreak on 13 August, Greencore said production at the plant was "continuing as usual".

More than a week later production ceased at the factory. On the same day, Northampton was named as an "area of intervention" by the government.

The BBC has since discovered that workers in areas such as the dispatch unit and security continued to work despite the closure.

The company said workers "who have completed their self-isolation periods are beginning to return to the site".

Director of Public Health at Northamptonshire County Council, Lucy Wightman, said the factory had been deep cleaned over the weekend.

"We are satisfied the standards there remain really high," she said.

"They've undertaken additional cleaning and are now reopened with a much smaller production line."