18 patients diagnosed with Covid-19 at Colchester Hospital last week

The East Suffolk and North Essex Trust said one patient also tested positive at Ipswich Hospital.

This includes patients who are still in hospital and those who have now been discharged, and includes patients where the test result came back positive before midnight on Sunday.

A spokesman for the trust said: "Last week (5 October until 11 October) 18 inpatients at Colchester Hospital and one inpatient at Ipswich Hospital were newly diagnosed with Covid-19."

For the week ending October 4 it cared for six patients who had tested positive for the virus.

There were also two patients being treated at Ipswich Hospital during that period.

The infection rate in Colchester is now 50.8 cases per 100,000 people with 99 positive tests in the seven days to Saturday.

Tendring has the highest rate in Essex with 81.9 cases per 100,000 people.

Nottingham continues to have the highest rate in England, with 2,931 new cases recorded in the seven days to October 10.

This was equivalent of 880.4 cases per 100,000 people.

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• Readers do not believe Essex should be put on 'high' alert level
• Student and staff member at sixth form college test positive for Covid-19

A poll by the Gazette found readers do not back plans to put tighter restrictions in place across large parts of Essex.

We asked you if you thought Essex should be placed in the high Covid alert level.

In total 1,531 of you responded with 61 per cent saying they did not back the move.

35 per cent said they thought the county should be under tighter rules while four per cent said they did not know.