10,000 more deaths if virus reproduction rate had not fallen - chief clinical officer

An additional 10,000 people would have died from Covid-19 had the reproduction of the virus remained at the same rate as the beginning of March, the country’s Chief Clinical Officer has said.

Speaking at a HSE briefing on the outbreak of the coronavirus, Dr Colm Henry said that the current reproductive, or R number, was between 0.3 and 0.8. That means that each person infected with the virus has in turn infected less than one other person on average.