WALES RATE BELOW ENGLAND

THE latest estimate of the R number for coronavirus in Wales has increased but remains below England.

The R number is the amount of people each person with Covid-19 is infecting with the virus.

If that number goes above one, the number of people becoming infected with the virus will grow exponentially – but as long as it remains below one, the number of people infected with the virus will continue to fall.

In Wales, the most recent estimate of the reproduction number from the UK Government’s pandemic modelling body SPI(M) is between 0.5 and 1.

It should be noted that the Welsh Government do not publish their R rate as quickly as other parts of the UK, and the figures that would have been used to calculate this predate the rise in cases in Caerphilly and RCT.

There is greater uncertainty in the estimates for Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland partly due to the smaller numbers of cases and deaths compared to England.

This is why the range for Wales is so big.

The same is true for Scotland where the current range is between 1.1 and 1.5 – an increase from 0.9 and 1.4 last week.

For England, the R number is 1-1.2 which is an increase from 0.91.1 last week.

The Department of Health in England publishes the R number for every region once a week. The R number has increased for every part of England.

East of England - 0.9-1.2 (0.8-1 last week); London - 1.1-1.3 (0.8- 1.1 last week); Midlands - 0.9-1.1 (0.8-1 last week); North East and Yorkshire - 1-1.2 (0.8-1 last week); North West - 1.1-1.3 (0.8-1 last week); South East - 1-1.2 (0.8-1 last week); South West - 0.9-1.2 (0.8-1.1 last week); Northern Ireland has has a huge range between 0.3 and 1.4.

At the start of the crisis the R rate was as high as three and there were lots of cases. This made the R rate a very important and useful measurement.

However, as there are fewer and fewer cases the R value becomes less useful because with a small sample size even one or two new cases can wildly skew the number.

The Welsh Government is therefore not using the R rate as much now and instead has a list of indicators it is looking at to decide if Wales needs to go back into lockdown.

These indicators are designed to spot spikes before Wales needs to go back into a full lockdown.

Welsh Government health experts will use various types of data to make a decision.

These are divided into circuit breakers and early warning indicators.