R Value

Subject: Science and tech

Context:

Reproduction number(R) has fallen below 1 for the first time since the pandemic began in India in the first week of March and for the sixth consecutive day number of people recovering from the disease, as reported in government data, exceeded the detection of new infections.

Concept:

• R-value is a measure of the number of people who are being infected on average by an already infected person.
• A value less than 1 means fewer people are getting the infection than those who are carrying the disease right now.
• The current R-value in India as a whole, as calculated by a team of researchers led by Sitabhra Sinha at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc) in Chennai, is 0.93. This means that on average, 100 infected people are passing on the disease to only 93 others.