The R rate which measures the spread of Covid 19 across the nation is rising and the North West’s level is now above 1 meaning that the infection rate is potentially increasing in the region
The Government’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance told a virtual briefing that the R-number – the average number of people that will contract coronavirus from an infected person – for England was between 0.7 and 1, while it remained between 0.7 and 0.9 for the UK as a whole.
The South West is currently the other area of the country with a rate above one according to the analysis by Cambridge university and Public Health England
The analysis states: “There is some evidence that Rt [the R] has risen in all regions and we believe that this is probably due to increasing mobility and mixing between households and in public and workplace settings.
“There is evidence, from the forecast of deaths for the whole of England, that the increases in the regional reproductive numbers may result in the decline in the national death rate being arrested by mid-June.”
The news comes as the country reaches a grim milestone, with more than 40,000 coronavirus related fatalities since the pandemic began, according to figures from the Department for Health and Social Care.
A total of 40,261 people have now died after testing positive with Covid-19, a rise of 357 since yesterday, amid 283,311 infections.
