A year ago today - on March 17 2020 - Blackburn's 'patient zero' tested positive for Covid-19.

Today marks the first anniversary of the virus arriving in Blackburn, however Covid-19 did arrive in Lancashire earlier than this.

The first two cases in the county were reported on March 4 in South Ribble.

The two people affected had recently travelled to Italy before they tested positive. They were then told to self-isolate at home.

A statement released by Blackburn with Darwen council a year ago today read: "Coronavirus is the greatest public health crisis this country and our borough has faced in generations.

"Our priority as we face this crisis together is to protect the most vulnerable in Blackburn with Darwen, the health and wellbeing of our staff and to make sure we keep essential services running as normally as possible while providing residents and businesses with reliable information about what the risks of the epidemic are to local people and what we are doing about it.

"We want everyone to be assured that the actions we are taking are in line with national advice and guidance.

"Given the new guidance issued by the government over social distancing, the Council has taken several decisions. You can find out how services and Council venues have been impacted so far below.

"As this crisis is fast evolving, we will keep these decisions under daily review.

"We are a resilient borough. We act in a calm but determined way. Indeed, one of our greatest strengths is our community spirit, our kindness and our ability to work together.

"By working together, by being kind and by supporting each other, we can tackle the challenges head on and come through this crisis."

The news of the first case in the borough was broken as the council confirmed that local authority-run facilities, including leisure centres, would shut the following day.

Also on the same day, figures released by Public Health England further show that number of people that had tested positive for Covid-19 had almost doubled to 15 across Lancashire in 24 hours.

Since then, we have seen three national lockdown, two tier systems and localised restrictions as Blackburn with Darwen became one of the hardest hit areas for the virus.

Now more than 17,400 people have tested positive in Blackburn with Darwen after 365 days with over 110,000 cases having been found in Lancashire.