R Rate? Possibly a stupid question

[Ohshitiveturnedintomymother]

So, I’ve just seen the daily figures and it says that the weekly cases have fallen by 12% but the R Rate is increasing?

How can this be happening? I thought that the r rate was how many people infected other people, e.g 1 to 1 but how can it increase if the cases are going down?

Concentration of cases so they’re not as thinly spread about nationally as before.

And that affects the r rate does it? Fascinating. I was wondering. So when it says the rate rate is at 1.1, does that mean in certain areas only?

No, the new Indian variant is affecting the R rate. So nationally covid case numbers are going down but in areas with an outbreak of the new variant the local numbers are going up and of those they are passing it on to others at a higher rate than previously. All that means that the infection rate (R rate) of covid generally is creeping up since you can’t account exactly for where the infection has moved and which variant it is.