Expert issues ominous coronavirus prediction on UK's exponential COVID-19 infection rate
CORONAVIRUS expert Professor John Edmunds warned infected Britons could risk passing on the deadly virus to as much as 250 people if the infection rate for COVID-19 remains high.
Coronavirus: Expert discusses COVID-19 ‘reproduction number’
Coronavirus cases jumped to 6,650 across the whole UK in the past week, with 335 Britons falling victim to the deadly virus. Infectious disease modelling professor John Edmunds warned one single patient suffering from COVID-19 could go on to generate as many as 250 secondary cases unless the right measures are adopted to contain and slow down the pandemic. Asked about how the infection rate of the coronavirus could be calculated, Prof Edmunds told BBC's World at One: "We measure that by what we call the reproduction number, which is the average number of secondary cases each case generates.
"For this virus, it’s somewhere between 2.5 and 3, that’s our best guess.
"Let’s take the mid-point of that range, which is 2.75 so each person, on average, infects between two and three-quarter of other people.
"Each of those, on average, infects two and three-quarter other people and so on, so forth."
Prof Edmunds continued: "After a month if that is the reproduction number that’s been applied throughout then you’d end up with about 250 cases generated from that one case at the beginning.
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"If we reduced the reproduction number to 1.5 with these social distancing measures for instance, then after a month, instead of having about 250 cases generated from each case, we’d have about 20."
Following repeated appeals from the British Government to limit all travel and work from home whenever possible, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Monday the UK will have to remain in lockdown for at least three weeks.
The Prime Minister made unprecedented decision to place the UK into lockdown as the coronavirus death toll climbed to 336.
The move will now force all non-essential shops to close - but has left many questioning what qualifies as an essential shop.
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Those who do not qualify as essential workers must now stay at home, with gatherings of more than two banned.
Only supermarkets, corner shops, hardware stores, chemists, petrol stations and newsagents are allowed to remain open during the lockdown.
Officers will have powers to disperse gatherings after a ban on meetings of more than two people apart from those who live together was announced.
But questions remain as to how officers will monitor whether people are breaking the rules, what action will then be taken, and how much the fines will be.
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Sir Peter Fahy, a former chief constable of Greater Manchester Police, told BBC Breakfast: "There is a huge amount of clarification needed."
Police chiefs warned of phone lines being inundated with calls after Mr Johnson's statement, with questions about what movements are still permitted.
Northamptonshire Police Chief Constable Nick Adderley urged the public not to cripple our phone lines with inquiries on the Prime Minister's announcement.
Lincolnshire Police warned of an extremely high volume of calls, and Humberside Chief Constable Lee Freeman said his force had received a number of calls on the subject, but he said he was unable to answer the questions asked.