Politics
Official Covid R rate creeps up AGAIN – but still hovers below crucial 1
THE UK’s coronavirus R rate has crept up this week but is still crucially below 1 in the UK.
The R rate – the number of people an infected person will pass Covid onto – is between 0.7 to 0.9 across the UK, and between 0.8 and 1.0 in England.
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The r rate increased slightly in the last seven days[/caption]
Last week Sage estimated it was between 0.6 and 0.9.
It comes as data from the ZOE Symptom Tracker app revealed that infections have crept up by seven per cent in the last week.
Professor Tim Spector, who heads up the study said a divide was emerging in England.
He said: “We’re seeing the regions diverge with Scotland, Wales, the Midlands and the North of England recording higher figures than in the south.
“As expected, cases in children are rising slightly off the back of schools reopening, and this effect is felt more strongly in Wales and Scotland where schools went back earlier.
“This is a necessary impact of unlocking society and numbers are currently well under control and aren’t a cause for concern.”
The data states that a week ago there were 4,470 new daily Covid cases and that this week, on average there has been 4,785.
However this is still down from a peak of 69,000 at the beginning of the year.
It comes as:
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- Britain is on course to offer Covid jabs to all adults by July despite EU export ban sabre-rattling, says top minister
- Zero Covid deaths in most areas for first time in 6 months as majority of regions go at least one day without fatalities
- The five areas where Covid cases are rising the most – is yours on the list?
A lower R rate is preferable for experts deciding on the easing of lockdown restrictions.
When the R is below 1, it means transmission is low enough for the epidemic to shrink – but greater than 1, it suggests the outbreak is growing.
The values are shown as a range, which means the true R rate most likely lies somewhere between the upper and lower estimates.
Looking at the R rate on a regional basis and some areas of England could have an R rate as high as 1.
What does R rate mean?
R0, or R nought, refers to the average number of people that one infected person can expect to pass the coronavirus on to.
Scientists use it to predict how far and how fast a disease will spread – and the number can also inform policy decisions about how to contain an outbreak.
For example, if a virus has an R0 of three, it means that every sick person will pass the disease on to three other people if no containment measures are introduced.
It’s also worth pointing out that the R0 is a measure of how infectious a disease is, but not how deadly
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