Why are you asking questions which you could answer for yourself in just one or two clicks? Rhetoric, I suspect...Richard Simpson Mark II wrote: ↑Mon Jul 12, 2021 3:03 pm Does anyone remember the 'R number' which was reported daily by the Government and the BBC and held up as the KPI determining when life might return to normal?
When did we last hear the 'R number' reported...does anyone know or care what it is now? Is it even still measured?
Obviously the R-number is still measured. It was measured for diseases before the covid outbreak and will be in future. It's a helpful means of establishing if a disease is increasing or receding. Just because the media and the public interest in something grows and wanes doesn't alter the metric you use to gauge it or its usefulness. And why would anyone forget something so important after just a few months? Epidemiologists certainly haven't! I suspect you're trying to discredit it or cast doubt on the science, like you usually do with climate change science Richard.
Anyway, 5 seconds of 'research' and 2 mouse clicks later, I have your figure for you. R in the UK is currently somewhere between 1.2 and 1.5 - so on average every 10 people infected are infecting between 12 and 15 other people.
Some epidemiologists are hopeful that the end of the Euros football will mean fewer places of mass close gathering of unmasked, 'uninhibited' people, and the R-rate might improve as a result...