Britain’s Covid-19 R rate has DROPPED: SAGE now estimates crucial number is between 1.1 and 1.3 but warns outbreak is still growing ‘rapidly across the UK’
- SAGE estimated last week that the infection rate was between 1.2 and 1.4 – higher than their new estimate
- But the reproduction rate – average number of people infected by Covid-19 cases – remained above one
- This means that Britain’s outbreak is still growing, albeit at a slower pace than previously feared
- The scientific advisory panel’s expertise is key to guiding Number 10 through the current pandemic
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Britain’s coronavirus R rate has dropped, according to the government’s scientific advisers, amid mounting fears over rising infections across the country.
SAGE now estimates the reproduction rate – the average number of people each Covid-19 patient infects – stands between 1.1 and 1.3. The number must stay below one for an outbreak to shrink.
For comparison, it was between 1.2 and 1.4 last week. This marks the second week in a row that the group’s estimate has fallen, with it standing at 1.3 to 1.5 in their previous report.
But despite the fall the advisory panel, whose advice is key to guiding Number 10 through the pandemic, warned it was certain the outbreak is still growing ‘rapidly across the country’.
Separate official data today warned infections surged by 50 per cent last week and are still ‘rising steeply’. The Office for National Statistics estimated 52,000 people were getting infected in England every day in the week ending October 23.
The team, whose calculations are based on the results of thousands of random swab tests, said roughly one in every 100 people in the country were infected with Covid-19 a week ago.
Other researchers at King’s College London, however, today predicted England has around 32,000 new symptomatic cases per day and claimed infections are rising ‘steadily’ and ‘have not spiralled out of control’.
And data released by Public Health England today revealed that 20 out of all 150 authorities in England saw a fall in their infection rates in the week ending October 25, in the latest sign the second wave is slowing.
When the figure is above 1, an outbreak can grow exponentially. An R of 1.3 means on average every 10 people infected will infect 13 other people.
The estimates for R and the growth rate are provided by the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M), a sub-group of Sage.
The growth rate, which estimates how quickly the number of infections is changing day by day, is between plus 2 per cent and plus 4 per cent for the UK as a whole.
A growth rate between plus 2 per cent and plus 4 per cent means the number of new infections is growing by 2 per cent to 4 per cent every day.
The most likely value is towards the middle of that range, according to the experts.
Sage said the figures published more accurately represent the average situation over the past few weeks rather than the present situation.