No mention of the R number this week

[IdratherbeinCornwall]

Does anyone know why?

[FrugiFan]

I don't know why but there has been a lot of discussion of R being far less accurate/ useful when rates of infection are low. It's not really a useful tool and gets people panicky if it sounds high even if there's a perfectly reasonable explanation.

[PatriciaHolm]

Pretty sure they said last week they weren't going to announce it any more, and certainly not at regional level, because it isn't that helpful once numbers get low - prevalence and rate of growth are more relevant and timely once you get to the low levels of infection and moving more towards squashing individual outbreaks.

[starrynight19]

It seems like they drop things without explanation same as the chart that said which level we were at , that’s disappeared now to.

[ComtesseDeSpair]

As previous posters have said, R actually becomes less useful as cases decline. For example: if Jane is the only person in her town to have Covid and spreads it to all four people in her household whilst they are all self-isolating, then the rate of infection for the town is R4. But it four separate individuals in the town have Covid and each spread it to two people in the town who also spread it to another two people each then it’s only R2. R doesn’t necessarily tell you anything about how high or low your risk of catching Covid is or how many people in total are infected - in the example above, there are more infectious people in the town and a greater risk of catching Covid when R is 2 than when it is 5.

[Crockodoodle]

The above OR the R rate no longer works to support BorisScience rather ScienceScience which doesn't fit his current narrative.

[Hmmph]

Wouldn’t the 4 people Jane lives with then have an R rate of 0 (assuming they aren’t going out), so the R rate overall wouldn’t be 4, it would be 0.8 (the average over Jane and and the other 4)?

[TorysSuckRevokeArticle50]

The put it on the bbc here www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51768274

0.7-0.9 for whole of U.K., with regional variances. Midlands where I am is 0.8-1

Southwest is the highest estimate.

[starrynight19]

Yes same as today Hancock picking out that deaths now are no different than at this time of year from public health data whilst ignoring the fact that schools and hospitals have both had the same number of outbreaks. As someone above posted doesn’t fit with their narrative.

[helpmum2003]

R number is how many people acquire the infection from 1 individual so 4 in that example.

[starrynight19]

Public health did say activity remains highest in the North and Midlands.

[PatriciaHolm]

@TorysSuckRevokeArticle50

The put it on the bbc here www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51768274

0.7-0.9 for whole of U.K., with regional variances. Midlands where I am is 0.8-1

Southwest is the highest estimate.

That's still from last Friday. Be interesting to see if they do actually update it tomorrow.

[cathyandclare]

The Zoe app updated it. All below 1. They estimate that daily cases have fallen from 4900 last week to 3719 this week too,

[ThousandsAreSailing]

Because lock down will be lifted regardless so they want to keep us in the dark

[scaevola]

The R0 assumes a previously unexposed population, where everyone is vulnerable.

Ir's not as simple as 'how many people did Jane give it to?'

It's made up of three factors - how long someone is infectious , how many of the people the infected person passes the disease on to (the secondary attack rate) and the number of people the infected person has been in contact with.

The R0 starts to become less useful as the proportion of the population whomhave previously been exposed starts to rise. When instead of R0, you need to use Re instead:

"The effective reproduction number, Re, sometimes also called Rt, is the number of people in a population who can be infected by an individual at any specific time. It changes as the population becomes increasingly immunized, either by individual immunity following infection or by vaccination, and also as people die.

"Re is affected by the number of people with the infection and the number of susceptibles with whom infected people are in contact. People’s behaviour (e.g. social distancing) can also affect Re.

"The number of susceptibles falls as people die or become immunized by exposure. The sooner people recover or die, the smaller the value of Re will be at any given time.

"Unfortunately, the symbol R0 is often used in publications when Re is meant. This can be confusing"

[AuntieStella]

Because lock down will be lifted regardless so they want to keep us in the dark

Plausible - NI authorities are beginning to talk about a summer 'pause' in some restrictions. It's not terribly clear if they mean to expect the beginning of the end and proper, planned and continuing lifting, or just a good enough patch during which we can have our cakes and circuses before it all goes serious again with the cooler weather.

Remember, Tories tend to care more about the economy than the individual.

And it's perfectly clear they are still firefighting the unexpected, inconvenient and deadly things that this disease is throwing at us

[FrugiFan]

@Hmmph

Wouldn’t the 4 people Jane lives with then have an R rate of 0 (assuming they aren’t going out), so the R rate overall wouldn’t be 4, it would be 0.8 (the average over Jane and and the other 4)?

No the R rate isn't averaged across everyone in the population. Otherwise that would mean an R of 1 means everyone in the community has it and gives it to 1 other person. The R rate would always be absolutely tiny if averaged out this way because the majority of people dont have it.
R is how many people are infected by one infected person (4 in this example)