The coronavirus reproduction number, or R value, in England may now be above 1, according to the latest Government figures.
Data released on Friday by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) puts the figure between 1.0 and 1.1.
Last week, it was between 0.9 and 1.1.
R represents the average number of people each Covid-19 positive person goes on to infect.
When the figure is above 1, an outbreak can grow exponentially but when it is below 1, it means the epidemic is shrinking.
An R number between 1.0 and 1.1 means that, on average, every 10 people infected will infect between 10 and 11 other people.
The figures for R and the growth rate are provided by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage).
The growth rate, which estimates how quickly the number of infections is changing day-by-day, is between 0% and 3% for England.
It means that the number of new infections could be broadly flat or growing by up to 3% every day.
