Lockdown restrictions in the UK are beginning to work, scientists said on Friday, as several studies showed coronavirus infections falling in England and most of the rest of the country.
The latest official estimate of R, the average number of people to whom someone infected passes the virus, is between 0.8 and 1.0 both for the UK and for England.
“The number of new infections is likely to be shrinking by between 1 per cent and 4 per cent every day,” said Sage, the government’s scientific advisory group for emergencies.
Last week Sage put R for the UK at 1.2 to 1.3.
More good news came from the latest Office for National Statistics infections survey. ONS estimated that during the week ending January 16, just over 1m people in England had Covid-19, equivalent to about 1 in 55 or 1.8 per cent of the population.
https://www.ft.com/content/50b5563a-c025-44ce-a135-2eb13be96c07