The UK’s coronavirus reproduction number, or R-value, ranges from 0.7-0.9 according to the latest government figures.
This is compared to a value between 0.6 and 0.9 last week.
R stands for the average number of people that each Covid-19 positive person will be infected.
When the number is above 1, a breakout can grow exponentially. However, if it is below 1, it means that the epidemic is decreasing.
An R number between 0.7 and 0.9 means that on average every 10 infected people will infect between seven and nine other people.
The latest growth rate is between minus 5% and minus 2%, which means that the number of new infections is decreasing by 2% to 5% every day.
The government estimates that in the week leading up to March 20, 162,500 people in the community population in England had COVID-19.
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