There was widespread anxiety and concern that the Government was basing its measures to suppress spread of coronavirus on an assumption that the numbers infected were doubling every five days, when the evidence here and internationally suggested a doubling rate of nearer four days.
I raised this concern with Neil Ferguson, the Imperial College expert whose forecasting has underpinned the Government’s accelerated moves to constrain our freedom of movement.
He told me: ‘I misspoke when I said five days.’
His baseline for the spread rate (R0) is that each sufferer would infect 2.4 people on average (technically: R0 = 2.4) which implies that the numbers infected would double every 4.3 days, in line with the international data.
If R0 turns out to be 2.6, then the doubling rate would be less than 4 days, and an R0 of 2.0 would mean doubling every 4.6 days.
The hope is that the doubling rate is nearer to five days than three.
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