“Are we at the end of the risk of people dying from from Coronavirus in Wales? Definitely not.” – ‘R’ figure stays at 0.8

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This article is old - Published: Friday, May 29th, 2020

Wales needs to be cautious with the ‘new freedoms’ announced today to ensure the ‘R’ figure does not ‘creep back up’ First Minister Mark Drakeford has warned.

At today’s Welsh Government press conference we asked the First Minister the ‘R’ figure, and to explain his understanding of why the 0.8 R figure has not changed over the last three weeks despite the lockdown being in place.

We also asked with potential loosening of restrictions how he expects that situation to improve.

The “R” has played a prominent part of the lockdown debate, with it representing a reproduction rating of the disease’s ability to spread. The figure is the number of people that one infected person will pass it onto, and therefore slowing, carrying on or snowballing the number of people infected.

We also pointed to a table previously presented by the First Minister that indicates an R of 0.8 could mean 800 deaths in the coming months, we asked if announcements today was an acceptance that is sadly going to happen regardless?

The First Minister told us: “I think it is inevitable that there will be future deaths in the days and in the weeks to come.

“Now, the number of deaths in Wales has fallen week by week, and we do expect that to continue, but are we at the end of the risk of people dying from from Coronavirus in Wales? Definitely not.

“That is why I play such an emphasis today on saying to people in Wales, that the new freedoms that we are able to offer have to be used carefully and responsibly. Otherwise we will find this R number, not just staying steady, but beginning to rise.

“Why hasn’t it fallen still further? Well, the virus is a virulent virus, it continues to attack people even with lockdown. We have hundreds of new people being infected. And it’s hard to understand, isn’t it, when people aren’t meeting anybody else, and there’s so little opportunity, how that can happen. What we’re learning about the virus is, it’s a very determined virus and it continues to circulate even when we made all the efforts we have.

“The advice we have about a measure that we are introducing today is that so long as it is the one measure that we introduce, and we monitor it carefully, the risk of R creeping back above where it is today is at the minimum end of the spectrum.

“That is why we taken the opportunity to do it.

“That’s why we’re not doing anything else at this point, because unless we continue to be cautious and careful, we could end up back in the sort of position that I think you were hinting at.”

Top pic: The latest ‘R’ predictions from the Welsh Government Technical Advisory Cell modelling data release.

You can view the full briefing from the First Minister on the below video, complete with Q&As: