Just a few months ago, no one, aside from epidemiologists and their ilk, had heard of the R number. Now, thanks to the coronavirus, everyone has heard of it and most people can tell you that it’s the ...

This article was last updated on 13 October 2021. The basic reproduction number, also known as the R or R0, is the average number of people one person with an infectious disease will likely infect in ...

There are few more important numbers these days than R. The reproduction rate has for much of this pandemic been cast as the most crucial of all pieces of data. Perhaps this is unsurprising; after all ...