Hadleigh’s mayor has said he would be “very surprised” if the town did not face further Covid-19 restrictions when lockdown ends on December 2.

People in Hadleigh were urged to “act now and protect each other” amid soaring coronavirus infection numbers last week.

On November 13, the town’s infection was 475 cases per 100,000 people – nearly double the England figure of 252 cases per 100,000 people.

Frank Minns, who took over as Hadleigh mayor recently, said: “I would be very surprised if come December 2, coming out of lockdown would make much difference here.

“It’s hard to see in the space of two or three weeks that we will be back to the low rates we had when all of this blew up.

“I can’t see life being anything like normal at the end of the lockdown period and I don’t think that is universal in Suffolk or even South Suffolk, but I can’t see it happening here.”

Mr Minns added that current rates may even be higher than is currently thought, due to the number of young families in the area.

He added: “I think one thing we can be quite sure of is that, although the majority of cases are confined to the residents and staff at the care homes, there will be quite a lot more in the town.

“I think that until we have a better handle on the number of cases there are here, it’s a bit difficult to know what the next step should be.

“There are quite a lot of young families around here who are probably going to be asymptomatic and that’s going to make it quite difficult to know.

“What we lack is information. We need someone to come out and find out what the cases are.

“I think we need increased testing in worse hit areas.

“There must be house-to-house transmission but we don’t know how much.

“We know it is bad, but how will we know if it is getting better or not without testing.”

The town council’s message to residents is to follow the lockdown rules of social distancing, wearing a mask when appropriate and washing hands regularly.

However Mr Minns also asked residents to ensure they have downloaded the track and trace app.

“It is important for people to download the government app if they can,” he said.

“I think it would be useful, particularly because the generation more likely to have the app are also the people less likely to show symptoms.”