The UK coronavirus reproduction rate remains unchanged from last week at between 0.6 and 0.9, according to health officials.
It suggests that the country’s Covid-19 outbreak is still shrinking, but at a slower speed than before following a month of weekly drops in the R rate.
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 0.6 and 0.9 means that, on average, every 10 people infected will infect between six and nine other people.
In London, the R rate is now thought to be between 0.6 and 0.8.
The growth rate, which estimates how quickly the number of infections is changing day by day, is between minus 6 per cent and minus 2 per cent for the UK as a whole. Last week it was between minus 6 per cent and minus 3 per cent.
The lower end of the UK’s coronavirus R estimate remains at 0.6 – which is the lowest R range seen since the Government first started publishing the figures in May 2020.
The figures for R and the growth rate are provided by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage).
It comes as separate figures suggest that one in 145 people in England had Covid-19 in the week ending February 19.
The Office for National Statistics latest infection survey also estimates that one in 125 Londoners — some 71,200 people — had the virus during the same period, a fall from one in 100 the previous week.
