Why we should be wary of React’s R-number estimate

It seems that Boris Johnson will not begin to think about lifting lockdown restrictions until we have clear evidence that the latest wave of the virus has almost been defeated.

So it was not exactly good news yesterday from Imperial College’s React Covid survey, which suggested that even though we are in lockdown, the R number is still almost at 1 in Britain – meaning the epidemic is barely shrinking.

As part of React’s ‘viral opinion poll’ swabs were taken from over 160,000 people in England between 6 and 22 January. And while the researchers rowed back on a claim in their previous report that active infections could be rising in England, the programme director, Paul Elliott, still painted a worrying picture:

‘We’re not seeing the sharp drop in infections that happened under the first lockdown and if infections aren’t brought down significantly, hospitals won’t be able to cope’.

But is Imperial right to be so concerned?

We believe not.