Estimated one in 200 people have Covid but new restrictions appear to be slowing its spread
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Currently as many as one in 100 people are infected with Covid-19 in north-west England, but there are signs that the rise in infections is now slowing, an interim report from a large testing programme in the community suggests.
Even in the least-affected regions, approximately one in 400 people are carrying the virus, after a fourfold increase in infections since late August to early September. However, the R value – the average number of people an infected person infects – appears to have fallen and now stands at around 1.1, indicating that social distancing measures introduced last month are beginning to have an effect.