Coronavirus: North gives our region a little hope
The Prime Minister said the R number – the reproduction rate of the virus – was “only just above one” and the lockdown would bring it back below that threshold.
Boris Johnson spoke as figures gave some hope that Tier 3 steps were already starting to have an effect, with virus levels falling in parts of the North East, North West and East Midlands.
Infection rates continue to increase – but at a slower rate – in the West Midlands, Staffordshire and Shropshire. Wolverhampton’s figure per 100,000 is now 279, up 114 on the week previously. The figure for Telford is 242, up 70, and for Cannock 333, up 44.
But that upward trend compares to Liverpool, which has a rate of 352 per 100,000, which is down 673 on the previous week. Nottingham’s rate is 384, down 200. And there is hope the West Midlands is starting to show a fall, with Coventry now at 196, down 16.
New data from the Covid Symptom Tracker app, which is run by King’s College London (KCL), suggests there has been a slight drop overall in new Covid-19 infections across England, Wales and Scotland.
Professor Tim Spector, who leads the app study, said on Twitter: “More good news as the Zoe CSS app survey continues to show a plateauing and slight fall in new cases in England, Wales and Scotland with an R of 1.0.”
He added that the reason the NHS is concerned is because “while rates may be starting to come down in children and the younger adults, there is a slow rise in the over-60s who are more likely to go to hospital – so we can’t relax”.
R, which stands for reproduction number, represents the average number of people each Covid-19 positive person goes on to infect. When the figure is above one, an outbreak can grow exponentially, but if it goes below 1, it means the outbreak is shrinking.
Growing
The data from KCL’s symptom tracker app appears to differ from the figures published last Friday by the Government Office for Science and the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), which estimates R to be between 1.1 and 1.3.
The figure is slightly lower than Sage’s official estimate from the previous week, which stood at between 1.2 and 1.4.
A Government adviser said that while the R number appears to be falling, it is still above one, which means “we are still looking at a growing epidemic”.
The official estimate also differs from one put forward by Imperial College London as part of the REACT-1 study last week, which is around 1.6 for England.
Meanwhile, KCL said that the data from its app suggests the number of daily new Covid-19 cases in the UK is steadily increasing, but it is “not surging as other sources have suggested”.
This data is based on around a million weekly users self-reporting symptoms and swab test results.
