Although positive coronavirus cases continue to rise in Babergh, which includes Hadleigh and surrounding villages, the district remains one of the lowest infected areas in the country.

The latest Covid-19 figures released by the Suffolk Resilience Forum, showed 45 positive cases in a week, with nine new cases in the two days between October 18 and 20. This increased Babergh's weekly case rate to 63.02, but left it 280th in the national table of 315 areas.

Suffolk, with a total 4,177 cases since the pandemic started, is the lowest affected area in the East of England region.

Meanwhile, two new peer-reviewed studies are showing a sharp drop in mortality among hospitalised COVID-19 patients. The drop is seen in all groups, including older patients and those with underlying conditions, suggesting that physicians are getting better at helping patients survive their illness.

Leora Horwitz, a doctor who studies population health at New York University's Grossman School of Medicine and an author on one of the studies, which looked at thousands of patients from March to August.

The study, which was of a single health system, finds that mortality has dropped among hospitalized patients by 18 percentage points since the pandemic began. Patients in the study had a 25.6% chance of dying at the start of the pandemic; they now have a 7.6% chance.

That's a big improvement, but 7.6% is still a high risk compared with other diseases, and Horwitz and other researchers caution that COVID-19 remains dangerous.

The current Government messaging is 'Hands, Face, Space' (previously 'stay alert, control the virus, save lives' and 'stay at home, protect the NHS, save lives')

Hands: wash your hands regularly and for 20 seconds.

Face: Wear a face covering in indoor settings where social distancing may be difficult, and where you will come into contact with people you do not normally meet.

Space: Stay 2 metres apart from people you do not live with where possible, or 1 metre with extra precautions in place (such as wearing face coverings or increasing ventilation indoors).