THE coronavirus infection rate has PLUNGED across the country, SAGE experts have told the government.
The so-called r-number has fallen to between 1 and 1.2 – the closest it has been to falling below the crucial 1 number since early September.
But experts warned the number still wasn’t low enough to either lift the second lockdown early, or even guarantee that it would be lifted at the four-week mark on December 2nd as the government had hoped.
In order to do that, SAGE said, the r-rate would need to be “well below 1 for an extended period of time” as “significant levels of healthcare demand and mortality will persist until R is reduced”.
The news comes as the UK was accused of being ill-prepared for the pandemic because officials felt a virus would “never travel this far”.
Dame Sally Davies, England’s former chief medical officer, said she questioned whether the country should rehearse for a coronavirus outbreak in 2015 but was told it would not “reach us properly” by Public Health England officials.
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