The North West’s coronavirus ‘R’ number is now above 1

The North West’s ‘R’ number has risen above 1, meaning it has the highest rate of COVID transmission in the UK. 

‘R’ is a value put in place to measure the spread of coronavirus during the pandemic. Scientists from Public Health England and Cambridge University have revealed in their latest analysis every region that is hovering around the crucial 1 figure.

The North West is running above that at 1.01, up from 0.73 a few weeks ago when the data was released.

The South West is listed as exactly 1, despite researchers believing the number of new daily infections there as ‘relatively low’.  

The South East is on 0.97, London on 0.95 – increased from the last value of 0.4 – and the East of England on 0.94. 

The Midlands is at 0.9 and the North East and Yorkshire, which previously had the highest R-value, is at 0.89.

So what does this mean? Well, it certainly poses questions regarding the easing of lockdown, as well as questions to the government about how it will handle this rise. 

“There is some evidence that Rt [the R] has risen in all regions and we believe that this is probably due to increasing mobility and mixing between households and in public and workplace settings,” says the analysis.

It adds: “An increase in Rt will lead to a slowdown in the decrease in new infections and deaths.

“There is evidence, from the forecast of deaths for the whole of England, that the increases in the regional reproductive numbers may result in the decline in the national death rate being arrested by mid-June.”

Ministers have said they will move towards ‘local lockdowns’ and the use of tracking and tracing should the spread start to increase again, but the national tracing system is not yet fully operational.

When asked about the numbers, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham said: “It’s very worrying. It appears, I would say, that lockdown has been relaxed too early, given the fact that ‘track, test and trace’ is some way from being up and running.

“I think it begs the question as to whether the advice is right to people in the North West.”

Nationally, the government has been quoting the number of R as 0.9 for a number of weeks now. But the latest analysis show that several regions have tipped over this territory.

This means the virus could spread exponentially. 

Greater Manchester reported a mixed picture regarding the current situation in the region on Wednesday, stating that while hospital deaths had slightly increased COVID admissions have returned to April levels.

Care home infections and new cases have reportedly been dropping in the area, however.