Suffolk's reported coronavirus infection rate has more than doubled in the space of a month, figures have revealed.

Data released by the government has shown there were 144 Covid cases identified in the county on June 18.

This was in comparison to the 76 cases reported on May 18.

With all cases from the previous week calculated, Suffolk had an infection rate of 141.8 cases per 100,000 people on June 18 – a rise from 67.2 cases per 100,000 a month earlier.

Covid data has also been broken down into postcode areas known as Middle-layer Super Output Areas (MSOAs), which each consist of about 8,000 people.

In the MSOA data up to June 16, the neighbourhood with the highest Covid rate in Suffolk was North Sudbury & Long Melford – at 343.6 cases per 100,000 people.

Ipswich had some of the lowest rates in the county, with Broke Hall reporting a rate of 43.9 cases per 100,000 after three infections were reported in a week.

The increase comes against a national backdrop of more than a million new cases estimated across the UK, which experts believe are likely being caused by two new Omicron variants, known as BA4 and BA5.

But these figures may be skewed by the lack of free public testing, which ended in April this year.

The number of daily reported cases in Suffolk started to fall from the start of April, having reached 1,037 on March 29.