What worried cabinet ministers today was the disclosure to them that the rate of transmission of Covid-19 is not properly under control in either hospitals or care homes. In the community, R – the rate of transmission – is probably as low as 0.5/0.6, which means its savage progress through the population has been arrested.
But in the very places where the frail and sick are supposed to be shielded, too many people are still being newly infected. Ministers were especially shocked to learn that some hospitals are really struggling to manage the rate of spread of illness. That is why Dominic Raab announced today that for the UK as a whole, R has deteriorated a bit and is in the range of 0.5 to 0.9. And 0.9 is too close to 1 – the threshold for exponential growth in infection – for comfort.
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