News

Coronavirus infection 'R' rate in UK creeps up

Posted Date: 15/05/2020

 
The infection rate in the UK has gone up and is close to the point where the virus starts spreading rapidly, government scientific advice says.
 
The so-called "R-number" is now between 0.7 and 1.0 - it needs to be kept below one in order to stay in control.
 
The rise in the figures is thought to be driven by the virus spreading in care homes and hospitals.
 
The effect of the changes to lockdown announced by the prime minister on Sunday is still unknown.
 
R is the number of people each infected person passes the virus on to, on average. If it is 2 then 10 infected people would pass it onto 20 others. But if is 0.5 then 10 infected people pass it onto 5 others.
 
The R-number had been sitting between 0.5 and 0.9. Any increase limits the ability of politicians to lift lockdown measures.
 
Health secretary Matt Hancock said the R-number was an "incredibly important figure" and it was important to note "we don't think that it is above one".
 
Is R the crucial number?
The number of new cases is still falling in the UK, but not as quickly as in the past. Sources said that progress was "getting closer to flat".
 
This could cause problems as low numbers of cases are needed to make it easier to perform mass testing and find the people anyone carrying the virus have come into contact with.
 
 
 
The latest analysis takes account of the spread of coronavirus in care homes, hospitals and more widely in society.
 
As the figures are based on patients ending up in hospital, they actually give a sense of the R-number from around three weeks ago.
 
That predates Boris Johnson's shift in England from "stay at home" to "stay alert", alongside encouraging some people back to work and allowing people to meet one person from outside their household outdoors.
 
The increase in the infection rate is said to be "consistent with" a significant fall in cases in the community and the epidemic and in turn the R-number being driven by care homes.
 
Sir Patrick Vallance, the government chief scientific adviser said: "To keep R below one and control the virus, it is vital that people stay alert and continue to follow the latest government guidelines to the letter."
 
Meanwhile, the Department of Health said it recorded another 384 deaths of people in the UK, bringing the total number to have died following a positive coronavirus test to 33,998.
 
 
 
 
THANKS - BBC NEWS


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