The rate of coronavirus transmission in the North is running at between 0.7 and 0.8, according to Andy Burnham - a figure mayor says is higher than nearly anywhere else in the country.
At his weekly press briefing, the mayor reiterated his belief that the government had dropped its ‘Stay at Home’ message too soon for the region, using figures that had originated within Public Health England as evidence.
Nationally, the government has been quoting the ‘R’ number - the rate of transmission for coronavirus, which needs to be kept below 1 in order to stop it spreading exponentially - at somewhere between 0.5 and 0.9.
Mr Burnham revealed the numbers in both the North West, Yorkshire and the North East are at the upper end of that scale. In the