Coronavirus: Suddenly, the government isn't so sure the R rate is important
It feels as if the government isn't quite so sure of the central role of the R rate.
Saturday 16 May 2020 08:34, UK
Take the words of the prime minister. On 30 April, Boris Johnson told the nation that "keeping the R rate down is absolutely vital to our recovery".
Or take the words of Monday's government document, "Our Plan to Rebuild", which made a point of warning that the R rate was "potentially only just below 1".
On this basis, the document suggested, the government was only allowing the smallest of lockdown easing to take place in England.
On the advice of the government's scientific advisory committee SAGE, the government announced on Friday evening that the R rate had gone up.
The range, now from 0.7 to 1, means there is now a chance that the rate of infection has stopped declining in the community.
Suddenly, it feels if the government isn't quite so sure of the central role of the R rate.
Government scientific advisers stress the R is rising because of the scale of infections in care homes and hospitals, not because it's going up elsewhere in the community more generally.
And now government advisers appear to be saying to the nation that the R wasn't that important a measure anyway.
In response to a question from Sky News at the daily press conference, deputy chief medical officer Jenny Harries said: "R is a very standard way of looking and comparing what's happening and it's a very important measure but the real outcome that we're looking for is a reduction in the number of cases and getting rid of the epidemic.
"That is the focus, not R. R is a representation of what is happening in that fight."
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It feels like quite a shift to hear that R is not "the focus".
Meanwhile Matt Hancock seemed to imply he was not perturbed with the idea that the R was no longer below one, telling the daily briefing "one of the tests is that it isn't above one… the data confirms that test".
Perhaps a strange mismatch with the wording from Monday's government document.
This is about health - but also about politics, not least because the leaders of the devolved nations have gone down a different route to Boris Johnson.
In England this weekend you can go where you want. But Wales is empty because non-essential travel is banned by the Welsh government.
The first minister said the police would stop visitors once they crossed the border. All these differences from politicians looking at the same data provided by the same scientific advisers.
If the R continues to go in the wrong direction, it could become more uncomfortable and lockdown could resume in England, no doubt to the satisfaction of the leaders in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.