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After nearly three years, the UK Health Security Agency will stop publishing COVID modeling data next month.
The increasingly sporadic updates to the virus’s R number will stop on January 6, when it is deemed “no longer necessary” due to vaccines and therapeutics.
The reproduction rate of Covid, which refers to the number of people who will pass the disease on to an infected person, was introduced back in May 2020 and was published weekly during the peak of the epidemic.
Along with the number of daily cases and deaths, it helped give people an idea of how prevalent the virus is.
From April 2021, the R number refers only to England rather than the whole of the UK – and from April 2022, it is updated fortnightly instead of every week.
Chair of the Health Agency’s Epidemiology Modeling Review Group, Dr. Nick Watkins said, Covid will still be monitored but in the same way as common illnesses like flu.
Modeling data may be re-introduced if the situation warrants it, such as if a new type of concern is identified.
COVID data will still be available from the Office for National Statistics.
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