Letter In The Telegraph Today.
News1 min ago
The R Number
14 Answers
For what seems like an eternity we have listened to Hancock, Johnson and the scientists on the Downing Street briefing scare us with the dreaded R figure.
Mustn't go to 1 or above. Or we are "all doomed".
Today on the briefing Grant Shapps and Prof. Powis were asked to comment on the fact that some places in England were reckoned to be 1 or above.
Powis said not to be concerned as the R figure is only one of a number of ways of following the virus.
Just make it up as you go along lads!
Mustn't go to 1 or above. Or we are "all doomed".
Today on the briefing Grant Shapps and Prof. Powis were asked to comment on the fact that some places in England were reckoned to be 1 or above.
Powis said not to be concerned as the R figure is only one of a number of ways of following the virus.
Just make it up as you go along lads!
Answers
1 to 14 of 14
Best Answer
No best answer has yet been selected by needawin. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.
For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.
They did not say the R number was above 1, needawin. They said there are about a dozen different calculations/models used to measure R. One of the dozen model suggested the value might be in the range 0.9-1.1 in one part of the country (South West I think), but all the other models put the maximum R value as being below 1.
Sage took all the models' findings into account, together with ONS data based on real studies tracking people, and came up with the range.
I wondered that too thecorbyloon but I think it's a rounded confidence interval rather than a range showing the highest and lowest values observed. The England value might have been 0.75-0.96 say Scotland and Wales figures are so low as to pull it down. Anyway, I am happy to leave it to Sage. I don't think people like Professor Van Tan, Stephen Powys or Chris Witty would put their name to something that was made up by government.
R has been the main focus but Boris also mentioned the other measure when he did his RoadMap broadcast- there was a little function put up on Powerpoint which explained the point but was criticised by some mathematicians as it showed a + in the function where it should have been a comma, which is why I remember it,
Refreshing to see Douglas is varying his language here- the fag packet has been dispensed with in favour of busking. I like it.
Sage took all the models' findings into account, together with ONS data based on real studies tracking people, and came up with the range.
I wondered that too thecorbyloon but I think it's a rounded confidence interval rather than a range showing the highest and lowest values observed. The England value might have been 0.75-0.96 say Scotland and Wales figures are so low as to pull it down. Anyway, I am happy to leave it to Sage. I don't think people like Professor Van Tan, Stephen Powys or Chris Witty would put their name to something that was made up by government.
R has been the main focus but Boris also mentioned the other measure when he did his RoadMap broadcast- there was a little function put up on Powerpoint which explained the point but was criticised by some mathematicians as it showed a + in the function where it should have been a comma, which is why I remember it,
Refreshing to see Douglas is varying his language here- the fag packet has been dispensed with in favour of busking. I like it.
I don’t think I believe anything I’m told any more.
Why has the virus seemingly vanished from London despite nowhere near 60% of people there having caught it?
Why are we listening to people like Neil Ferguson who has been proved spectacularly wrong in just about all of his predictions (maybe we aren’t)
Why has the virus seemingly vanished from London despite nowhere near 60% of people there having caught it?
Why are we listening to people like Neil Ferguson who has been proved spectacularly wrong in just about all of his predictions (maybe we aren’t)
fic fac it was the Southwest.....can I suggest Durdle Door and similar beach invasions as being a major contributing factor?
Nobody has ever said "we are all doomed" and its been made clear all along that R is only one of the measures which is why we are shown data on tests and infections, hospitalisation and so on. Corbs, the answer to your question is because there will be individual hotspots and regional variation. the flare in SW has raised the figure for England but overall this is mitigated by better figures from Scotland Wales and NI.....a flare in Scotland say, would raise the UK figure but not the England figure.
Nobody has ever said "we are all doomed" and its been made clear all along that R is only one of the measures which is why we are shown data on tests and infections, hospitalisation and so on. Corbs, the answer to your question is because there will be individual hotspots and regional variation. the flare in SW has raised the figure for England but overall this is mitigated by better figures from Scotland Wales and NI.....a flare in Scotland say, would raise the UK figure but not the England figure.
>Why has the virus seemingly vanished from London despite nowhere near 60% of people there having caught it?
Because of social distancing and lockdown, perhaps, and the fact that they were two weeks ahead of the rest of country and so their tail off of cases has occurred before ours. I'm surprised though given the scenes of crowded tube trains and the BAME levels. The population is probably younger - that may help
Because of social distancing and lockdown, perhaps, and the fact that they were two weeks ahead of the rest of country and so their tail off of cases has occurred before ours. I'm surprised though given the scenes of crowded tube trains and the BAME levels. The population is probably younger - that may help
1 to 14 of 14
