Wales leading UK in slowing Covid-19, ‘R’ number suggests

WALES has been ahead of the rest of the UK in slowing the spread of coronavirus, new figures suggest.

The latest estimates of the R number, which shows the average number of people every person with coronavirus is infecting, show it has fallen in Wales to between 0.5 and 0.8 – with a most likely mid point of 0.7 as of May 29.

This is a fall of 0.1 from the previous week according to the latest estimates from the Centre for Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Disease (CMMID).

It means that modellers expect the number of new cases being reported every day in Wales to halve roughly every week. They predict the halving rate is every 7.8 days in Wales – the fastest rate of decline in the UK.

All four governments of the UK use the R number as an indicator of how much the virus is spreading within a country or region.

The CMMID data shows that the rate of spread of coronavirus is slowing in all parts of the UK except the for the South West England, the region with the highest R-rate in the whole of the UK, at 1.0.

Here, it’s estimated cases of the virus will double every 90 days.

Only two other regions of the UK – the east of England and the north east of England – also have an R-rate of 0.7. In the east of England and north east of England cases will be halved every 9.7 and 8.5 days, respectively.

The data comes as First MInister Mark Drakeford is considering making further easements to lockdown at the next official review on June 18.

He has previously said that if the R-rate gives Wales the headroom its needs to relax measures further, the country would allow non-essential retail shops to re-open.

Speaking at the Welsh Government coronavirus briefing earlier this week, economy minister Ken Skates said he hoped that non-essential retail “took the alert” at the last review, but warned that the big challenge for re-opening businesses will be getting people through the doors.

All other regions of the UK have also been found to be decreasing or likely decreasing, except for the south west of England and Northern Ireland.

Experts have routinely warned that if the R-rate rises above 1, the number of cases will grow rapidly.