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Covid R-rate 'has fallen to one', raising hopes that lockdown could be avoided
Data from King’s College's app shows a slight fall in new cases in England
The R-rate in England has fallen to 1, King’s College has said, leading to hopes that a national lockdown can be avoided.
New data from the King’s ZOE app, which has been tracking symptoms and test results since the first wave, showed a slight fall in new cases in England.
Professor Tim Spector, who shared the update on Twitter, said: “More good news as the Zoe CSS app survey continues to show a plateauing and slight fall in new cases in England, Wales and Scotland with an R of 1.0.”
The new results are more evidence that the tier system is working and will put greater pressure on Boris Johnson to pause the national lockdown on Thursday.
Government scientists have already been criticised for showing out-of-date and alarmist graphs at a press conference on Saturday where national measures were announced.
Sir Patrick Vallance and Professor Chris Whitty showed future projections for an R-rate of between 1.3 and 1.5, even though they believed the rate was now 1.1 to 1.3, and were aware that the tier system was having an impact.
The King’s data suggests the r-rate may now be at 1, which would mean the pandemic is no longer increasing in some of the worst areas.
According to the King’s app, cases in northern England and the Midlands stopped increasing four days ago, although there is still some rise in the south, from a lower base. Cases in Liverpool have shown large declines since the city was placed into Tier 3.
Prof Spector has already questioned why the government is locking down the country when the disease appears to be ‘running out of steam’ in the worst affected areas.
Likewise, other experts said they could not understand why further restrictions were being imposed just as cases were beginning to fall.
Professor Carl Heneghan, director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, said the R value in Liverpool is 'well below one at this moment in time'. He said there is a "problem" in Liverpool, but that cases in the city have halved and hospital admissions have "stabilised".
“You've got ... these pockets around the country where trusts, like Liverpool, have got into trouble with over half the patients being Covid patients,” he told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme.
“But let's look at the data, the data in Liverpool is showing cases have come down by about half, admissions have now stabilised, so, yes, there is a problem in Liverpool.
“But, actually, the tier restrictions... the people in Liverpool have dropped cases from about 490 a day down to 260 a day - a significant drop.
“The R value is well below one in Liverpool at this moment in time.”
Latest data from the most recent Public Health England (PHE) Weekly national Influenza and COVID19 surveillance report shows that the vast majority of outbreaks are happening in schools, workplaces and care homes and that the hospitality industry is a very low risk.
Out of 1,391 acute respiratory infection incidents reported in week 43, just 31 were linked to food outlet and restaurant settings - of which 23 were Covid.
In contrast, there were 397 incidents in care homes, 71 in hospitals, 311 in educational settings and 334 in workplaces, with a total of 803 Covid cases between them.
The figures suggest that closing shops, pubs and restaurants would do little to halt the spread