@TruelyStruttingHotpants
What we are seeing on a localised level in hotspots. A massive uptick of cases for a few weeks then levelling off. Followed by the decrease in cases. Is believed to be the virus hitting the vaccine wall we are building. The general thought is we will see this happen in most the country. The R rate will level out fairly quickly.
If this turns out to be correct and early signs appear positive. Then the transmitabllity and the herd immunity figures really don't matter. Other than from a scientific or curiosity point of view of course 
That's a nice (hopeful!) take on things. But this far I think it's only been a very small number is places that have spiked and then give down (Bolton and Bedford, I'm not sure if anywhere else) They spiked early so it's possible they had a level of public health attention that might not be so sustainable everywhere. One to watch.
It's an interesting point though, that the models predicting a third and serious wave in terms of hospital admissions do so on the basis of much higher case rates than ever seen before (because they're mainly in the young, and vaccination prevents serious disease better than it does infection). We don't really know whether very high case rates may have some sort of natural limit - for instance if people start altering their behaviour to avoid catching it, schools are closing, etc.