UK's Covid-19 infection rate stable, less than one new infection per carrier
There has been “encouraging progress” as the reproduction rate of Covid-19 has remained unchanged in the UK from last week according to transport secretary Grant Shapps.
The all important R-number as it is known tracks how many additional people get the virus from one carrier and can predict the seriousness of an infectious outbreak.
Currently, he said the UK’s R-number stands at somewhere between 0.7 and 0.9 – meaning less and less people will contract the virus.
However, in Scotland it is estimated that the R-number is believed to have fallen in the last week from a range of 0.7 to 0.9 down to 0.6 to 0.8.
Mr Shapps claims were supported by information from the government’s cobra file on infections’ results.
He said: “This is encouraging progress and suggests that around 1-in 1700 people in the community had coronavirus in the latest period of the survey.
“Also confirmed today is that the estimate of the R-number for the UK is unchanged since last week at some point 0.7 to 0.9.
“We want to keep the R-number below one and R is of course is the average number of additional people infected by each infected person.
“The confirmed cases with a test 6,434,713 test have now been carried out or posted out in the UK, this includes 193,253 tests carried out posted out yesterday, 292,950 people have tested positive for an increase of 1541 cases since yesterday.
“That is a steadily falling number of identified cases on a seven-day rolling average despite the increase in testing.”
