Yahoo Finance UK R rate remains at between 0.6 and 0.9 as one in 125 Londoners thought to have virus
The UK coronavirus reproduction rate remains unchanged from last week at between 0.6 and 0.9, according to health officials.
It suggests that the country’s Covid-19 outbreak is still shrinking, but at a slower speed than before.
R represents the average number of people each Covid-19 positive person goes on to infect.
When the figure is above 1, an outbreak can grow exponentially, but when it is below 1, it means the epidemic is shrinking.
An R number between 0.6 and 0.9 means that, on average, every 10 people infected will infect between six and nine other people.
In London, the R rate is now thought to be between 0.6 and 0.8.
The growth rate, which estimates how quickly the number of infections is changing day by day, is between minus 6 per cent and minus 2 per cent for the UK as a whole. Last week it was between minus 6 per cent and minus 3 per cent.
The lower end of the UK’s coronavirus R estimate remains at 0.6 – which is the lowest R range seen since the Government first started publishing the figures in May 2020.
The figures for R and the growth rate are provided by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage).
It comes as separate figures suggest that one in 145 people in England had Covid-19 in the week ending February 19.
The Office for National Statistics latest infection survey also estimates that one in 125 Londoners — some 71,200 people — had the virus during the same period, a fall from one in 100 the previous week.
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