UK government reveals latest coronavirus R rate for Sheffield and South Yorkshire

For the UK as a whole, the current growth rate is minus 4 per cent to minus 2 per cent, and the estimate of the reproduction number, referred to as R, remains at 0.7 to 0.9.

LATEST: Sheffield man irate after car pelted with ACID for second time in 18 months

The growth rate reflects how quickly the number of infections is changing day by day, and, as the number of infections decreases, is another way of keeping track of the virus.

If the growth rate is greater than zero, and therefore positive, then the disease is growing, and if the growth rate is less than zero, then the disease is shrinking.

COLLISION: Motorcyclist, 16, suffers 'potentially life-threatening' injuries following Sheffield crash with suspected drink driver

Until the figures were published for the first time on Friday, the Government had only been giving details of the R value of the disease - the average number of people an infected person is likely to pass it on to.

R estimates do not indicate how quickly an epidemic is changing and different diseases with the same R can result in epidemics that grow at very different speeds.

Neither measure - R or growth rate - is better than the other but each provides information that is useful in monitoring the spread of a disease.

The R value for North East and Yorkshire is 0.7 – 0.9, and the growth rate is minus 5 per cent to minus 1 per cent.