Coronavirus: UK 'R' value remains below Government target for second week in a row, scientists say

R-number - the average number of people that will contract coronavirus from an infected person - was between 0.7 and 1 across the UK

UK 'R' value remains the same for second week in a row, scientists say

The reproductive rate of coronavirus has remained steady for a second week in a row, scientific advisers have said.

The so-called R-number - the average number of people that will contract coronavirus from an infected person - was between 0.7 and 1 across the UK, reporters were told during a briefing on Friday.

There is a time lag in the calculations, with the latest R value relating to what was happening two to three weeks ago.

The latest rate is the same as the one released last week and remains higher than the previous one, which was between 0.5 and 0.9.

Check what the R rate is in your region below.

The lack of downward movement is thought to be driven by the continued spread of the virus in care homes and hospitals during the period covered rather than the wider community.

Keeping the R number below one is a key goal Prime Minister Boris Johnson has set to allow the continued gradual releasing of the lockdown in the coming months.

If R is one or higher, the virus will spread exponentially through the population. An R number of less than one indicates the virus is in decline.

Mr Johnson has said ministers would reimpose controls if the rate of transmission of the virus started to pick up again.

Announcing his "road map" out of lockdown Mr Johnson said: "We must make sure that any measures we take do not force the reproduction rate of the disease - the R - back up over one, so that we have the kind of exponential growth we were facing a few weeks ago."

Last week, Health Secretary Matt Hancock stressed that the R rate was below one in his 5pm briefing. Watch that clip here.

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What is the R value?

The reproductive value describes the average number of people an infected individual can expect to pass the coronavirus onto. It is therefore a measure of how transmissible, or contagious, a disease is.  

If a virus has an R0 of three, it means that every individual infected will pass the disease onto three other people if no containment measures are introduced.

“The reason we’re interested is because it not only gives you an idea of how many people the virus is likely to infect, but also an idea about how effective your interventions need to be to end the outbreak,” said Jonathan Ball, professor of molecular virology at the University of Nottingham. 

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