England’s Covid R rate has increased by between 3% and 6% according to the latest government figures.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) announced on Friday that the reproduction number, the rate at which the virus can replicate, is between 1.2 and 1.5.
This means that on average, every 10 people infected will infect between 12 and 15 other people.
Infections are estimated to therefore be growing by between 3% and 6% per day.
If the R rate is larger than 1, the epidemic is seen to be growing as case numbers are increasing exponentially, and if it’s less than 1 it’s considered to be shrinking.
It measures how many people each infected person passes the virus on to.
The last statistics were published before Christmas, on December 23.
The R rate in England was estimated to be between 1.0 and 1.2 at the time, but government experts warned that this did not show the recent influx of Omicron cases as there was a lag in data.
Before Christmas, UKHSA’s chief medical adviser Susan Hopkins even suggested that the R rate of just Omicron could be between 3 and 5.
Infection rates in the UK reached a record high during the final week of 2021, with an estimated 1 in 15 people in England testing positive for Covid.
Despite ongoing concerns about the infections in the UK, prime minister Boris Johnson has so far refused to bring in further social distancing measures.
Here’s what the R rate is in each region of England:
East of England – 1.1 to 1.3 (from 0.1 to 1.2)
London – 0.9 to 1.2 (down from 1.2 to 1.6)
Midlands – 1.2 to 1.5 (from 0.9 to 1.1)
North-east and Yorkshire – 1.3 to 1.6 (from 0.9 to 1.1)
North-west – 1.3 to 1.5 (from 0.9 to 1.1)
South-east – 1.0 to 1.3 (from 0.9 to 11)
South-west – 1.0 to 1.3 (from 0.9 to 1.1)
R rate estimates in the other three UK nations, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, are calculated separately.
Scotland last recorded the R rate as between 1.0 and 1.3 as of December 7.
Wales’ estimated R rate was between 0.9 and 1.1 as of December 9, while Northern Ireland’s is between 1.5 and 1.9 as of January 4.