The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine says that the UK’s lockdown measures have managed to bring the coronavirus infection rate there down significantly, offering hope for a path out of the crisis.
According to preliminary data, the infection rate for each person who has the virus to pass it on to others, or R-naught, has likely dropped to 0.62 from 2.6 before lockdown measures were put in place, showing a significant flattening of the curve.
The data is based on an online survey asking participants to list their contacts from the day earlier.
“If we see similar changes across the UK population, we would expect to see the epidemic to start to decline,” Professor John Edmunds from the school, who led the research, says in a statement.
“This means the virus is cornered – it has nowhere to go and will burn out. Good news,” tweets University of Birmingham Prof. Karol Sikora.
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From the Liveblog of
Wednesday, April 1, 2020
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