Covid-related deaths in care homes across Suffolk jumped in October, with five recorded in a one-week period.

There had previously only been three deaths in four months, including three months in a row with none at all.

The chair of Suffolk Association of Independent Care Providers has said care homes will continue to take appropriate precautions.

Prema Fairburn-Dorai, SAICP chair, said: "The care home figures are always concerning, however each death may also have underlying conditions. Having said that care home providers will take all precautions to keep their residents safe and it may mean that some will restrict visitors when they feel it is appropriate.

"I must stress that this will be a decision taken by individual providers in the best interests of their residents.

"At the moment, I'm not sure whether they would do that. We're not looking at a serious situation yet. There are not many outbreaks."

Since the beginning of the calendar year, Suffolk has had 178 care home deaths attributable to COVID-19.

Across England there have been 10,959 deaths registered in the same period in care homes.

In total there have been more than nine million confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK and more than 140,000 people have died.

The Government have said there are no plans to introduce restrictions known as the 'Plan B' for winter.

They said they would continue to monitor the data but vaccination had weakened link between cases, hospital admissions and deaths.

So far half of the eligible people aged 50 and over have already received their COVID booster jab in England, which is part of the action the Government is taking to reduce the impact of the virus over the winter particularly for the elderly.

Other positive signs include the rolling 7-day rate of cases per 100,000 people, which for over 60s is currently less than half of the rate for people aged 0-59 at 238 compared to 519.