The government are refusing to publish regional R levels. Now we know why

The government has for the last month or so continually repeated that social distancing and lockdown measures will be determined by the R rate but what is it?

The R rate:

It is called the reproductive value, or “R0 ” – pronounced ‘R nought’ or ‘R zero’. The measure is used to track how many people, on average, will be infected for every one person who has the disease. 

Since the lockdown, scientists in the UK estimated that the UK’s reproduction value had dipped below one. Estimates, published in the Government’s new coronavirus strategy on May 11, put the number somewhere between 0.5 and 0.9. On May 14, analysis by Public Health England and Cambridge University calculated that the “R” reproduction rate has fallen to 0.4 in London, with the number of new cases halving every 3.5 days.

However, when we look at the rest of the country we can see that even though London is falling, largely due to having a ration of high population to cases other parts of the country have a higher rate.

The government seem reticent to publish but thankfully others are less guarded about knowledge that the public should have access to.

As we can see from the above table the North east and Yorkshire and the South West have the highest R rating as calculated and London, as mentioned above, the lowest.

This has implications for returning to work, opening schools, mixing with non family… members etc and really should be taken seriously by everyone who respects their health and the health of others.

This is information that should be disseminated to communities with clear guidance as to how to understand it. Until then Dorset Eye and other independent media will have to fill in the gaps.

Douglas James

Update:

Andy Papageorgiou: I know it’s pedantic but we no longer have R0 (nought). This is rate for a populations where everyone is susceptible, and no mitigating measures have been taken. We are now on R or Re (the effective R), some people have been infected and recovered, some social distancing is in place, public transport is less crowded, lock down has had effect etc.
https://www.healthknowledge.org.uk/…/epidemic-theory