The R-rate of coronavirus infections in Yorkshire is the lowest in the country but thousands of new cases are reported every day, government figures show

Statistics released by Public Health England for the North East and Yorkshire show the R-rate at 0.9.

The “R” value, or infection rate, refers to the number of people that one infected person will pass the virus to on average.

Coronavirus has an estimated reproduction number of three, meaning an infected person will likely pass the virus on to at least three other people.

A reproduction number that is higher than one poses a significant risk, as the number of cases can increase rapidly, making it harder for the spread to be contained.

However, if the number is lower than one, the virus will eventually die out as not enough new people are being infected to sustain the outbreak.

But the number of cumulative infections for the Yorkshire stands at 809,000 with an average of 2,450 new cases recorded every day.

There are concerns that the rate of infection is growing in North West and South West, which currently have R-rates of 1.01 and 1.0 respectively.

All other regions are between 0.89 and 0.97