Britain announces 351 more Covid-19 deaths

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Britain announces 351 more Covid-19 deaths taking official number of victims to 36,393 – as government scientists reveal UK’s crucial R rate is still near the point where an outbreak could spiral out of control

  • Today’s death toll is marginally lower than 363 recorded yesterday, the lowest Thursday figure since March 26
  • Experts sitting on Number 10’s SAGE panel today revealed crucial R-value was teetering on brink of spiralling
  • Reproduction value – average number of people a patient infects has stayed between 0.7 and 1 for two weeks
  • Here’s how to help people impacted by Covid-19

By Stephen Matthews Health Editor For Mailonline and Connor Boyd Health Reporter For Mailonline

Published: | Updated:

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Britain today announced 351 more coronavirus deaths, taking the official number of victims to 36,393 as Government scientists warned the reproductive rate is still teetering on the brink of spiraling back out of control.

Today’s death toll is marginally lower than the 363 recorded yesterday, the lowest figure on a Thursday since March 26 (103). 

Experts sitting on Number 10’s SAGE panel today revealed the crucial R-value – the average number of people that will contract coronavirus from an infected person – was between 0.7 and 1 across the UK for the second week in a row.

Officials must keep the number below 1 otherwise the outbreak will start to grow again and threaten a second wave. However, the latest data is three weeks out of date due to a lag in the government’s mathematical modelling. 

The R is calculated by working out how fast the virus spreads by comparing data including hospital admissions, the number of patients in intensive care, death statistics and surveys to find out how many people members of the public are coming into contact with.  

The new number does not factor in the slight relaxation of Britain’s lockdown measures, announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson on May 13.  

In other developments to Britain’s coronavirus crisis today:

  • A Nobel Prize-winning scientist tore into Boris Johnson’s lack of political leadership over coronavirus that has left the UK on the ‘back foot’ and ‘firefighting through successive crises’;
  • Thousands of lives could have been saved from Covid-19 if Britain’s lockdown was imposed just one week earlier, a government scientific adviser claimed;
  • JD Wetherspoon revealed its £11million masterplan to reopen its 875 pubs as soon as the Government gives them the nod in July;
  • So-called coronavirus ‘immunity certificates’ that could allow Brits to return to work have come a step closer after ministers announced mass antibody tests are being deployed;
  • Australia is pushing to be the first country exempted from the UK’s 14-day coronavirus quarantine – as arrivals face ‘spot checks’ on homes and £1,000 fines for breaking the rules.

Mr Johnson has said ministers would reimpose controls if the rate of transmission of the virus started to pick up again. Announcing his ‘road map’ out of lockdown Mr Johnson said: ‘We must make sure that any measures we take do not force the reproduction rate of the disease – the R – back up over one, so that we have the kind of exponential growth we were facing a few weeks ago.’

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said in today’s Downing Street briefing: ‘We’re constantly keeping the R under review and it is one of our five tests… we don’t think it’s above 1, we think it’s in a range, so it still meets that test.’

He said the R was an ‘incredibly important data point’ but was not the only thing politicians were considering as they ease the lockdown. He said a change in the range was ‘important to look at’ but officials were not re-thinking their decision to start easing lockdown. Dr Jenny Harries, deputy chief medical officer, added that the real goal was to get the number of cases down, and the R was one of a number of ways to track this.

The chair of a Parliamentary science committee, Greg Clark MP, said officials should not focus too much on the R and should look at the wider picture. 

He said: ‘It’s not clear how the R rate in care homes is relevant to the R rates of people going about their daily business,’ adding that the government’s figure was clearly skewed by faster transmission in hospitals and nursing homes.

WHAT IS THE R, AND HOW DOES THE GOVERNMENT ESTIMATE IT? 

Every infectious disease is given a reproduction number, which is known as R0 – pronounced ‘R nought’ – or simply R.

It is a value that represents how many people one sick person will, on average, infect if the virus is reproducing in its ideal conditions.

The value has been estimated by the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE).

They assess data from hospitalisations, intensive care demand, deaths and the number of social contacts people have.

Experts use multiple sources to get this information, including NHS hospital admissions, Office for National Statistics and CQC death figures and behavioural contact surveys.  

Using mathematical modelling, they are able to calculate the virus’ spread. 

But a lag in the time it takes for coronavirus patients to fall unwell and die mean the R modelling is always roughly three weeks behind.   

Most epidemiologists – scientists who track disease outbreaks – believe the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, has an R value of around 3.

But some experts analysing outbreaks across the world have estimated it could be closer to the 6.6 mark.

As an outbreak goes on, the R0 may be referred to more accurately as Re or just R, as other factors come into play to influence how well it is able to spread. 

Estimates of the COVID-19 R vary because the true size of the pandemic remains a mystery, and how fast the virus spreads depends on the environment. 

As an outbreak progress the R may simply be referred to as R, which means the effective rate of infection – the nought works on the premise that nobody in the population is protected, which becomes outdated as more people recover.