The government have published the latest estimates for the COVID-19 R number and growth rate.
Prof Kevin McConway, Emeritus Professor of Applied Statistics, The Open University, said:
“It certainly looks encouraging that today’s revision to the R number range for England doesn’t go above 1, for the first time since early May. But there’s a crucial note of caution. These estimates aren’t right up to date (and never have been). As the UK Health Security Agency (who produce the estimates) point out explicitly on the web page where the estimates are published, “These estimates represent the transmission of COVID-19 2 to 3 weeks ago, due to the time delay between someone being infected, developing symptoms, and needing healthcare.” Two to three weeks ago was 23-30 July. Back then, infection rates in England were indeed falling, according to both the ONS’s Covid-19 Infection Survey (CIS) and the daily numbers of confirmed new cases on the dashboard at coronavirus.data.gov.uk. That’s what you’d expect with an R number below 1. But according to both those sources, that decline in infections in England levelled off at about the end of July, and since then there have been some signs of a slow increase. So I can’t get excited about this R number position – infections were declining at the time it refers to, but now they aren’t. According to the CIS results published today, about 1 in every 75 people in England would have tested positive for the virus during the week ending 7 August, well over 700,000 people in all, and that’s a lot.”
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-r-value-and-growth-rate
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Declared interests
Prof Kevin McConway: “I am a Trustee of the SMC and a member of its Advisory Committee. I am also a member of the Public Data Advisory Group, which provides expert advice to the Cabinet Office on aspects of public understanding of data during the pandemic. My quote above is in my capacity as an independent professional statistician.”